Leap To Fame heads to NSW early to avoid cyclone

DEFENDING Miracle Mile champion Leap To Fame (Bettor’s Delight) has left Brisbane for Sydney early to avoid any possible travel delays Cyclone Alfred may cause.

Trainer-driver Grant Dixon has been on weather watch all week and opted to leave his Tambourine harness racing stables by road with Leap To Fame almost a day ahead of schedule.

Leap To Fame is due KerryAnn and Robbie Morris’ Lucky Lodge stables neighbouring Menangle by mid-afternoon today (Wednesday).

“We’ve known the weather is coming so we decided to take any risk out of it and get on the road early,” Dixon said.

As is customary for Menangle’s major races, all Miracle Mile runners – and runners in the Group 1 NSW Derby – will be required to enter the on-course retention barn from midday tomorrow (Thursday).

They will stay here until being permitted to enter the normal race stalls at Menangle two hours before their respective races.

Dixon said Leap To Fame had enjoyed almost 11 days back home in his own stables since his last start win in the Group 1 Newcastle Mile on February 21.

“We’ve followed the same routine that worked so well last year, Hunter Cup into Cranbourne then Newcastle and back home in between that and the Miracle Mile. He thrived last year and seems to have done the same again,” he said.

Dixon concedes the strength and depth of this Miracle Mile, combined with another wide draw (Leap To Fame will start from gate seven), makes this as hard a test as his champion has faced.

Beyond the Miracle Mile, Leap To Fame’s owners Kevin and Kay Seymour have a slot in the $NZ1 million Race by Betcha at Cambridge on April 4.

Tentative plans are for the six-year-old to have a lead-up race in the $NZ60,000 Waikato Mile at Cambridge on March 28.

But Dixon stressed everything was tentative until after the Miracle Mile.

“Let’s talk more about NZ then,” he said.

That’s fair given Leap To Fame has already been scheduled for two NZ trips, the same Cambridge race last year and last November’s NZ Cup, but circumstances have seen both trips aborted.

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by Adam Hamilton, for Harness Racing Australia