Larry needs personal best performance in The Race by betcha

The hero of harness racing is going to have to produce the best winning performance of his career to win in the $1million Race by Betcha at Cambridge tonight.

That hero is Leap To Fame (Bettor’s Delight), a genuine cast-iron champion, winner of 49 of his 62 starts and almost everything you could want in a pacer.

He has won most of the races that matter in Australia, shattered records and conquered hearts.

Tonight he will need to do something he hasn’t done before. He will, almost certainly, need to sit parked outside another great horse and crush him to win.

That is the accepted speed map for tonight’s 2200m slot race, that Leap To Fame from barrier seven will work forward and sit parked outside leader Don Hugo from barrier 2.

No shock in that. About the only gift Leap To Fame wasn’t given is gate speed and that coupled with a series of dreadful draws means he has done more than his share of sitting parked in our best races.

But here is the shocking, and thought-provoking, part for punters: He almost always gets beat when he does.

Larry, as he is affectionately known, has sat parked in seven races at the highest level and been beaten in five.

The only exceptions was when he won a somewhat below par Miracle Mile last year when Sooner The Better even gave him a scare late and in the 2024 Blacks A Fake when he sat parked outside the enormously inferior Hi Manameisjeff.

So how can clearly the best pacer in this part of the world get beaten so regularly when asked to race outside the leader?

Welcome to modern harness racing.

As the breed has refined, gear and tracks improved the best harness races have become punishing affairs.

Most are won by horses on the markers or, when things get crazy, swoopers. Few, very few, are won by horses sitting parked.

Leap To Fame is THE living example of that.

Examine the five times Leap To Fame has sat parked and been beaten and you find the leaders were been Swayzee (twice), Rock N Roll Doo, Catch A Wave and in last month’s Miracle Mile, Don Hugo.

So every time the champ has sat parked outside a Grand Circuit winner in a major race, he has been beaten. Every time.

That is not to say it will happen tonight and if almost any other horses was drawn to lead tonight you would be happy taking the TAB’s $2.30 quote that “Larry” could sit parked outside them and put them to the sword.

Tonight his issues are two, or maybe threefold.

If he can crush Don Hugo, no small feat, Leap To Fame could still be left a sitting duck for stalkers Merlin or Don’t Stop Dreaming, who aren’t as good as him but might not have to be.

But first he has to get past Don Hugo, a Eureka, Inter Dominion and Miracle Mile champion driven by a freak in Luke McCarthy and one who could cover 6-8 less lengths than Leap To Fame.

Don Hugo isn’t as good as Leap To Fame either but that isn’t the point.

The point is, actually the question is, do you really want to take $2.30 for a horse to do something it has only successfully achieved 28.4 per cent of the time?

Of course you do.

Because you want to see Larry win. You want to witness greatness and feel that rush.

Possibly, maybe probably, he will give that to us.

But wanting doesn’t produce winning. And very rarely, as it turns out, does sitting parked in $1million races.

LARRY’S PARKED PROBLEMS :

Leap To Fame’s record when parked out in the highest level races

March 2025: 2nd to Don Hugo in Miracle Mile
Feb 2025: 2nd to Swayzee in Hunter Cup
July 2024: 1st in Blacks A Fake, beating Swayzee.
March 2024: 1st Miracle Mile beating Sooner The Bettor.
Oct 2023: 3rd to Act Now in Victoria Cup.
Sept 2023: 2nd to Encipher in The Eureka
July 2023: 2nd to Swayzee in Blacks A Fake

For complete race entries, click here.

by Michael Guerin, for Harness Racing New Zealand