Harness racing’s two biggest stars are chasing record-breaking paydays at the best A. G. Hunter Cup meeting in more than a decade.
Champion pacer Leap To Fame and freakish trotting mare Keayang Zahara are favourites to bank new bonuses of $1 million and $500,000 respectively if they are victorious on Saturday night.
Including the Hunter Cup prizemoney, Leap To Fame will pocket his connections $1,142,500 should he win, more than any single race win in Australasian history.
Keayang Zahara’s challenge is more complex. To win the $250,000 Great Southern Star, she will need to qualify for the final through a heat on the same night then win it two hours later.
She has the chance to add $650,000 to her already thumping prizemoney haul of $1,010,535.
Harness Racing Victoria created the bonuses, which are insured, in a quest to attract the best horses from around Australia and NZ to race in Victoria multiple times during its revamped six-week Summer of Glory.
It has been hugely successful with Leap To Fame lining up for his fifth Victorian start in as many weeks. Kingman and Keayang Zahara will be having their fourth starts during the carnival.
“This was as much about getting the biggest stars here for much longer than a one-off race … to give the public a chance to see the best race each other week-in, week-out,” HRV CEO Matt Isaacs said.
“The talkability it’s created has been fantastic and now we bring it home with the grand finals, so to speak, on our biggest night.”
To be eligible for the bonuses, Leap To Fame and Keayang Zahara have had to win three of a possible five lead-up races.
Leap To Fame has done so over the past three weeks in the Ballarat, Cranbourne and Kilmore Cups.
Keayang Zahara’s wins have been more spaced, coming in the Group 1 Maori Mile at Melton on January 10, the Group 2 Ballarat Trotters Cup on January 24 and the Group 1 Cranbourne Trotters Cup on January 31.
“It’s such a great thing for the game, not just for us with our girl, but we love the game and to watch the likes of Leap To Fame, Kingman, Swayzee and now Republican Party going at each other week after week is so special,” Keayang Zahara’s driver Jason Lee said.
Keayang Zahara is the most likely of the megastars to land a bonus.
A winner of 23 of her 24 starts, including 12 at Group 1 level, she is a commanding favourite to win her Great Southern Star heat from gate five and $1.20 in pre-post markets for the final later on the card.
Leap To Fame faces the likely challenge of having to do what he couldn’t last year to bank his bonus, and that’s sitting outside arch-rival, half-brother and great stayer Swayzee to win the Hunter Cup.
Swayzee used a better draw to lead throughout and beat a gallant Leap To Fame into second spot last year and has a better barrier again this time.
Stalking them both will be new sensation Kingman (gate 10) and NZ’s best pacer Republican Party (gate one).
The scene couldn’t be set any better.
