Queensland Harness Racing Wrap - December 18

Catch up on the week's harness racing action in our weekly review, thanks to Darren Clayton.

THE GOOD

After being so gallant in defeat in the Blacks A Fake, The Eureka and the Victoria Cup, Leap To Fame finally snared a big one with a dominant victory in the Inter Dominion.

The four-year-old became the first Queensland horse since Blacks A Fake to claim the sports pinnacle event, leading for much of the gruelling 2680 metre journey for trainer and driver Grant Dixon.

Pressing forward from the start, Dixon was able to find the front just short of 2000 metres left to travel and from there, it was turned into a brutal staying test, with Swayzee sent to sit parked for the last mile.

With the two brothers going at it a long way out, the lead time of 77.9 seconds was followed by a crazy 27.8 second opening quarter.

Dixon knew what his powerhouse pacer could produce and he kept his foot hard on the accelerator.

Running the third split in 27.2 seconds, as they turned off the back straight, Leap To Fame had pulled clear as Swayzee started to feel the pinch, with early leader Future Assured also unable to go with the leader after securing the trailing trip.

As the crowd rose to their feet and a roar descended across Albion Park, Leap To Fame had run up the stretch out in front, with no other horse able to challenge through another sizzling quarter of 27.5 seconds, posting a winning margin of 10.6 metres.

Breaking the track record and setting a new world record of 1.53.5 for the journey, Leap To Fame took his record to 29 wins from 39 starts, 12 of those wins this term and eclipsing $1 million for the season to take his tally to $1,275,970.

That eclipses the single season record of Blacks A Fake and only Lennytheshark has won more in a single season.

Better Eclipse claimed second place, with a game Swayzee holding on for third, with Spirit Of St Louis in his third straight Inter Dominion Final grabbing fourth.

Greg Sugars secured a unique achievement, his second in the Pacing Final bettered by victory in the Trotting Final with Just Believe.

Just as Leap To Fame was dominant, Just Believe was far too strong for his rivals, with Sugars content to sit parked outside the leader Mufasa Metro.

It was a perfectly controlled drive from Sugars, allowing John Justice on the leader set the pace, knowing that it would be extremely unlikely for anything from back in the pack to move forward with Just Believe in the position he was.

With an 82 second lead time followed by a first half of the last mile in 60.7 seconds, the speed was dialled up down the back with a 27.8 second panel.

Flexing in the home stretch, Just Believe had far too much to offer, claiming victory over Mufasa Metro, with Victoria completing the trifecta as Queen Elida grabbed third for Chris Alford.

It was the third successive Inter Dominion Trotters Final for Sugars as Just Believe moved closer to becoming the first Australian-bred trotter to reach $1 million in stake earnings.

Creating a unique achievement, it was the first time in a three-heat format that both the pacing and trotting winner completed a clean sweep of the series in the same year.

Both consolations were won by Belinda and Luke McCarthy with Cantfindabettorman claiming the pacing division and Constantinople the trotting division.

THE BAD

It was a gut-wrenching defeat for Angus Garrard who was looking to secure a unique double of the BOTRA Queensland Young Drivers Championship and the Australasian Young Drivers Championship in the same season.

Claiming the BOTRA title in November, Garrard was in a strong position to annex the double heading into the final heat at Albion Park on Saturday night.

Driving the well-supported Stormtide, Garrard held a seven-point lead over Western Australia’s Emily Suvaljko and looked to hold all the aces.

However, it was Josh Gallagher driving Aroda that was able to storm down the outside to score over Corey Johnson aboard Hands On, with fellow Queenslander Leonard Cain holding third with Aardies Flash.

Meanwhile Stormtide failed to beat a runner home, leaving Garrard with just one point from the heat.

That sent the scoring bunker into a flurry, with Gallagher’s 17 points for victory seeing him leapfrog from out of the pack to finish on 81 points, tied with Garrard.

Under the conditions of the series, the tally went to a count back to declare the winner and with Gallagher claiming the last win, his total of three wins across the 10 races was enough to see him declared the winner.

Despite a consistent performance across all 10 heats, Garrard claimed one victory, going agonisingly close to the victory.

Suvaljko was able to grab third place, while Corey Johnson who scored a winning double at Redcliffe on Thursday held fourth.

Already an Inter Dominion-winning reinsman after securing the 2021 Final for trainer Jason Grimson aboard Boncel Benjamin, Gallagher took his season tally to 153 wins with the win aboard Aroda, his best season to date.

THE WILDCARD

Mira Saturn broke maiden ranks at Albion Park last Tuesday with the two-year-old filly having been the runner-up on five occasions this season.

The two-year-old filly had been agonisingly close to victory on several occasions before finally securing the breakthrough, defeating Sister Katie with Aldebaran Fonz grabbing third on debut.

Trained by Ricky Gordon, the trotting filly has shown her share of ability and manners all season and even grabbed a second placing at Marburg against older performers.

Stepping cleanly on Tuesday, Gordon found the trail behind the race favourite Sister Katie and followed her throughout the first 2000 metres of the 2138 metre event.

As the field swung for home, Mira Saturn was travelling strongly, and Gordon angled her into open space, and she showed good speed to wear the favourite down and claim a two-metre margin.

The win also secured connections the $14,000 QBRED first win bonus with the victory.

Placed in six of her 10 starts before last week’s success, the maiden breaking win was proving elusive, before the daughter of Wishing Stone was able to claim victory.

It was also a timely boost for the vendors of her half-sister for the upcoming Sunshine Stars yearling sale, which will be presented for the February 11 sale.

THE MILESTONE

The race to 400 wins for the season has been claimed, Nathan Dawson reaching the amazing milestone at Redcliffe on Friday afternoon.

Sitting on 399 wins at the start of the meeting, Dawson had a smaller book than usual owing to the Australasian Young Drivers Championship heats.

Mach Daddy, a $19 starting hope was win 400, Dawson charging hard along the passing lane with the Donny Smith-trained five-year-old arriving in time to nose out the swooping Glover which was the widest runner.

Dawson becomes the first Queensland driver and just the second in the country to reach 400 in a season, with Chris Alford the only other driver to have achieved the feat, having reached the number twice with in the 2017-18 and 2018-19 racing seasons with 456 and 420 winners respectively.

Dawson churned out the winners out consistently. 

Win 100 occurred on March 27 with Beach On Fire.

Win 200 - July 8, Uptown Beachgirl.

Win 300 - September 23, Aphorism.

Win 400 -  December 15, Mach Daddy.

The 400 wins have been with 208 individual horses, with Not As Promised not only providing Dawson with a pair of Group 1 victories, also providing the most individual wins for the season with eight.

Second on that list is Frankie Ferocious with seven, while Uptown Beachgirl, Teachers Pet, Our Dolly, Feelin Flirty and Adelle have all secured six wins this season with Dawson taking the reins.

A total of 56 individual trainers have benefited from Dawson’s services, with the 209 individual winning horses prepared by 56 different trainers, including himself with My Ultimate Byron earlier in the season.

By total numbers for trainers, Dawson has won 50 races for Jack Butler, reaching the half-century with Windy Will Wally on December 8.

Peter Greig has 39 winners partnered by Dawson so far this season, Donny Smith 35, Ben Battle 32, Shawn Grimsey 30 and Graham Dwyer 29.

With 11 meetings left in the season, can he get to Alford’s 420 total?

THIS WEEK

'ID23' has passed, but the show rolls on and there are six meetings on the schedule for the coming week.

A Monday afternoon fixture from Redcliffe will start the week with further meetings form the Peninsula on Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon.

Wednesday night will see the Redcliffe Christmas Cup held, a race that always gathers a strong line-up and this year is no exception with Northview Hustler and Miracle Moose who both contested the Inter Dominion series lining up in the feature.

A total of nine races will be on the docket at Albion Park on Tuesday afternoon, with a further two meetings on Friday afternoon and Saturday night.

Saturday nights racing will see the Albion Park Christmas Cup and the Members Cup held.