The dial has shifted, albeit just slightly.
As we rolled into 2025, most felt it would be another year of Leap To Fame dominance in our biggest races.
Just Believe’s historic NZ Horse of the Year crown could be a sign of things to come.
With NZ prizemoney on the rise and rich new races popping up, it’s a happy hunting ground for Aussie trainers.
While Hunter Cup winner Swayzee will miss the $1mil Miracle Mile, his trainer Jason Grimson has just landed the brilliant Captain Ravishing to target Australia’s premier speed test next month.
In a surprise twist, Captain Ravishing was flown back from Perth to Melbourne yesterday (Monday) and will join Swayzee on a road trip to Grimson’s Menangle stables later this week.
You could hear the groans go through Cranbourne a couple of years ago when the club’s Cup was moved to the week after the Hunter Cup.
Most feared it would be a disaster.
Young gun driver Cam Hart knows how to beat Leap To Fame and has a plan to do it again in Saturday night’s Group 1 Hunter Cup.
Hart drives Swayzee, the older half-brother to Leap To Fame, who famously beat him when they first clashed in a epic contest in the 2023 Group 1 Blacks A Fake at Albion Park.
The mantle is sitting empty, at least for six months or so.
Who will step-up and grab as Australia’s best trotter with Just Believe retired and Callmethebreeze limbo?
IT was early October, 2022.
I rang Greg Sugars to chat for a preview story a few days ahead of the Group 1 Bill Collins Trot.
A regular preview yarn turned into so much more when Sugars started waxing lyrically about the potential a relatively new stable addition, Just Believe, had.
Popular Victorian trainer Scotty Ewen can’t believe what he is seeing.
Almost eight years after his stable star Bulletproof Boy raced for the first time, somehow the now 10-year-old has “gone to a whole new level.”
It feels a bit like the good old days.
Those heady times in harness racing through the 1990s and early 2000s when we would watch with a mix of excitement and trepidation when the Kiwis stars crossed the ditch to chase Victoria’s biggest races.
The Kiwis won every Hunter Cup from 1993 to 1997 and a whopping 13 of them between 1993 and 2016.
They were similarly dominant in the Victoria Cup with 10 wins between 1993 and 2017.
Avoiding mighty stayer Swayzee and a love of smaller tracks is why classy NSW pacer Kanena Provlima is back in Victoria trying to go one better than he did in last year's Shepparton Gold Cup.
While most horses love the spacious 1400m Menangle track – Sydney’s home of harness racing – co-trainer Robbie Morris says it’s a different story with Kanena Provlima.
Top trainer Jason Grimson loves going bush with his stars.
While Grimson trains at Menangle and boasts a string of mega wins, including two Inter Dominion and two NZ Cups, at major tracks, he is Young and remains a country lad at heart.
After focusing on the equine stars of 2024 in the first part of his 2024 review, Adam Hamilton returns with a broader look at the people, the headlines and more.
Champion driver Anthony Butt thinks Tact McLeod is the right horse to win him a remarkable eighth Group 1 Hunter Cup.
Butt, a former Kiwi now based in Victoria, already holds the record for the most wins by a driver in Victoria's biggest harness race with seven, but it has been 11 years since he last won it.
It is easy to forget how spoiled we have been this year.
We saw two all-time greats of their gait – Leap To Fame and Just Believe – deliver us the “Larry” and “Harry” show and provide so many memorable moments.
In my time, it was way back in 1985 when Preux Chevalier (pacer) and Scotch Notch (trotter) strutted their stuff in tandem since we have seen such greatness in both gaits at the one time.
Others will go back to Maori’s Idol and the best pacers during his career, but that’s just before my time.
Then, in the most spectacular of arrivals, along came Keayang Zahara. There has NEVER been a three-year-old trotting filly like her in this part of the world.
And we got all this in one year.
As I’ve said before, harness racing has many challenges, but it certainly isn’t with the quality of horses or a lack of star power. We’ve got it in droves.
Here’s some of my reflections on the horse front from 2024…
The two newly crowned Inter Dominion champions are heading to Victoria.
While Andy Gath’s big guns are resting, the decorated trainer has four chances across three races to snatch more feature race glory at Melton on Saturday night.
The baton now goes to Victoria.
After the shortest of breaks to enjoy Christmas, the stars will be back in action chasing feature races again in our backyard.
This is scary, but it’s just three weeks until the first of the big country cups, the $75,000 Group 2 Bendigo Cup, which is supported by the $60,000 Group 2 Maori Mile for the trotters on January 4.
Victoria doesn’t have the great Just Believe flying its flag, but still has the quality and quantity to continue its dominance in tonight’s Inter Dominion trotting final at Menangle.
Just Believe, sidelined by injury, has brilliantly won the past two finals, giving Victorians six wins in the past nine finals.
There can only be one winner.
But in a “normal” season, any of Just Believe, Keayang Zahara or Leap To Fame would be absolute locks for Australian Horse of the Year honours.
Victoria flexed its muscle last weekend and there is more to come.
Freakish filly Keayang Zahara set the tone when she toyed with her rivals yet again in the NZ Trotting Oaks at Addington last Friday night.