Leap To Fame - Smoken Up Sprint 2024 Photo by Stuart McCormick
HISTORY awaits champion pacer Leap To Fame in next Saturday night’s $300,000 Group 1 Victoria Cup at Melton.
Remarkably, at the age of just five, Leap To Fame can join the mighty Preux Chevalier as the only horse to have won harness racing’s “Grand Slam” – Victoria Cup, Inter Dominion, Miracle Mile and Hunter Cup.
All-time greats like Blacks A Fake, Popular Alm and Lazarus only won three of the four.
It is 39 years since the WA-trained Preux Chevalier completed his Grand Slam.
Leap To Fame won the Inter Dominion at Albion Park last December, added the Hunter Cup in February and then the Miracle Mile in March.
He is $1.60 favourite ahead of tomorrow’s barrier draw to add the Victoria Cup, which is widely regarded as the Cox Plate of harness racing.
Popular Alm won the Victoria Cup twice (1982 and 1983), Preux Chevalier’s win came in 1984, Blacks A Fake saluted in 2006, and Lazarus did it in 2017.
Leap To Fame, who has a better winning strike rate than all the greats who have come before him, stretched his record to 43 wins from just 54 starts when he cruised to victory in last night’s $50,000 Group 3 Smoken Up Sprint at Melton.
He has banked $3,235,310, which puts him in seventh place on Australasian harness racing’s all-time prize money list.
A Victoria Cup win would move him above Monkey King into sixth spot.
With targets like the $1mil NZ Cup, $1mil Miracle Mile, $500,000 Inter Dominion and others just around the corner, Leap To Fame could overtake Blacks A Fake ($4,575,438) by early next year.
Owner Kevin Seymour, who has spent more than 50 years in harness racing as an owner, breeder, sponsor and administrator, described Leap To Fame as “the horse Kay (Seymour’s wife) and I have been dreaming of.”
Seymour admitted some relief when his megastar cruised to victory at Melton last night.
“If they were going to beat him, we felt it could’ve been last night,” he said.
“He was only second-up, had two days on the road (from Brisbane to Melbourne) and drew the outside (barrier), but he still won easily.
“We were keen to get that run into him because we knew it would bring him on again for next week. He should be right where we want him now.”
Leap To Fame started a hot favourite in last year’s Victoria Cup at his first attempt in the race but finished a close third after doing the work outside the leader.
“He’s a better horse now because he’s had the year competing in the biggest races and, looking back, Grant (Dixon) felt he didn’t quite have him as primed as he needed in last year’s race,” Seymour said.
“We didn’t want to make that same mistake twice, hence getting him down to Melbourne early to race last night.”
