Dixon and ‘Larry’ make statement in G1 Sunshine Sprint

While it is impossible to emphatically answer just who might be the best pacer in the world of harness racing right now, Queensland sensation Leap To Fame (Bettor’s Delight) is certainly backing up the popular opinion that it could well be him.

The Grant Dixon trained four-year-old was simply breathtaking tonight in his first attempt against genuine FFA company in the G1 $200,000 Sunshine Sprint at Albion Park tonight (July 15).

With all but one of the ten horse field in front of Leap To Fame at the 800m, Grant Dixon was forced to send his champion in the making on a searching four and five wide run at the 400m point of the sprint feature.

Despite being shunted deep on the track and never getting a cart into it, Leap To Fame was able to knuckle down and run away from some of the best and most battle hardened pacers in Australia.

Given no favours, Leap To Fame, gave zero excuses, doing the talking for himself with a performance that suggests superlatives post The Rising Sun exclaiming him to be the best in the world are not as preposterous at first thought.

Regardless of how uncomfortable pundits anointing an age group horse a champion before his time makes many of us feel, where others have stumbled, Leap To Fame is proving to be suitably named. When the bar is raised, nine times out of ten he has delivered, and that is all you can do.

LEAP TO FAME REPLAY

“I was super proud of him”, said Dixon post-race.

“I had to overcome a few difficulties in the run. In the end we probably didn’t get too bad a trip at them, and he finished off good. Like you say he’s got great speed and a great will to win,” he said.

The winning time for the 1660m journey was 1:53.7 with a mile rate of an unbelievable 1:50.2.

The official closing sectionals of 27.5 and 27.1 are impressive under any circumstance, but when you consider Leap To The Fame did it working wide on the track and without a helmet to follow, it’s hard to imagine any horse beating him in the $2.1million Eureka come the beginning of September.

Mind you, at the beginning of the week it was hard to imagine him being thrown in the deep end so soon after beating up age group opposition.

“We really judged it off the horse,” said Dixon.

“We did a blood during the week and we were really happy with that and he felt so well last week, we thought we have to keep him ticking over and adjust to this level,” he said.

His trainer/driver cannot be overlooked in his role getting the Kevin and Kay Seymour owned pacer primed after missing the Miracle Mile carnival in favour of nailing the back half of the season.

It would have been hard not to feel some sense of pressure with the buzz surrounding this horse and external conversations about his talent playing out online for the better part of seven days.

Dixon delivered an ice cool drive to match the superstar qualities his stable star possesses. It would have been extremely tempting to have gone sooner and tried to land handier to the speed. But you get the sense that while he hasn’t come out and directly said it as yet, Dixon knows that Leap To Fame may well be the world’s best pacer in the making.

Perhaps the Albion Park faithful who turned out in their droves already believe it.

Dixon was welcoming of the support and interest Leap To The Fame was no doubt responsible for in front of his home crowd.

“I think people love a great horse and it’s really great to see everyone here,” he said.

For complete race results, click here.

by Brad Reid, for Harnesslink