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Australia’s five million dollar pacer Leap to Fame (Bettor’s Delight) exacted his revenge on his nemesis Kingman when he led all the way to take out the Group 2 $100,000 Ballarat Pacing Cup on Saturday night.
In their previous harness racing outings Kingman had a 3-0 advantage but at Ballarat he had to come off the second row while Leap To Fame was on the outside of the front row.
While Mach Dan held the early lead Grant Dixon went for broke and he was able to find the lead. By contrast Kingman ended up four back on the fence with Bulletproof Boy on his outside.
With one and a half laps left to travel Luke McCarthy on Kingman came off the fence to cautiously edge up to Leap To Fame. But he had a tendency to race ungenerously on the bends and this didn’t help his cause.
LEAP TO FAME 24 JAN REPLAY
Dixon let Leap To Fame go in the final lap and in a scintillating third quarter of 26.4 seconds left his rivals including Kingman in the lurch. Kingman battled on down the home straight but Leap To Fame cruised to the finishing line just under 12 metres from the stablemates Dee Roe and Forty Love just in front of Kingman.
Leap To Fame ran the 2200 metres in 1.54.4 and set a new the track record to beat Smolda’s eight year record of 1.54.8.
There are still two legs of the Country Cups bonus to be run in the following weeks at Cranbourne and Kilmore before the $250,000 AG Hunter Cup on 14 February. Leap To Fame who thrives on racing may well run in the Cranbourne Cup which he has won over the last two years.
Grant Dixon reflected on the winning return of Leap To Fame.
We had the draw tonight on Kingman. And that obviously the difference but its nice for Larry to get the win up. He felt good we didn’t know where to go from here tonight. We were so pleased with him. The main thing was to keep the jump on Kingman. I think whoever gets the better trip is the victor at the moment.
We were happy that we were ahead of him. We decided to came down early (for the bonus) to try so the dream is still alive. Its going to be super hard to do. But if you don’t have a go you never know.
For complete race results, click here.
by Tony Milanese, for Harnesslink
