Leaping Back To The Trials

Leap To Fame ID23 Final Win. Photo by Dan Costello.

QUEENSLAND pacing sensation Leap To Fame kick-starts his huge hometown winter campaign when he returns to the trials at Albion Park tomorrow.

It’s the five-year-old’s first public appearance since completing harness racing’s Triple Crown by adding the March 9 Miracle Mile to his wins in the Hunter Cup and Inter Dominion final.

Leap To Fame stamped himself as one of the best pacers in the world and became the first pacer to win the Triple Crown in one campaign since the great Preux Chevalier way back in 1985.

“He had three weeks out, and we’ve been able to bring him back up nicely and slowly. The break has done him well,” trainer-driver Grant Dixon said.

Leap To Fame’s trial today is from a standing start and carries added importance with his targets for the remainder of this season, including the $100,000 Group 2 Redcliffe Cup on June 29 and the huge NZ Trotting Cup in Christchurch on November 12. Both races are standing starts.

That’s why Dixon has chosen a standing-start trial tomorrow and the standing-start Flashing Red at Albion Park on June 8 as Leap To Fame’s likely first-up target.

“He needs standing start practice and has to race in a standing race before the Redcliffe Cup to be allowed to run in it,” he said.

“Every standing-start trial and race he has is an important step if we take him to the NZ Cup, which we’d love to do.”

Aside from the Redcliffe Cup, Leap To Fame’s major winter targets will be the $200,000 Group 1 Sunshine Sprint at Albion Park on July 20 and the $400,000 Group 1 Blacks A Fake at the same track a week later.

Leap To Fame won last year’s Sunshine Sprint before copping a flat tyre and seized sulky wheel with a dramatic second to his older half-brother, Swayzee, in the Blacks A Fake.

Their rematch in this year’s Blacks A Fake will be the highlight of the Queensland Constellations.

Swayzee returns from a long spell as a $1.45 favourite at Sydney’s Menangle track on Saturday night.

·      Adam Hamilton is a paid contributor writing on harness racing for News Corp.