Kiwis fare well in Inter Dominion first night draws
Harness Racing New Zealand • July 1st, 2025 12:02 PM • 4 min read
The barrier draws have given the Kiwi raiders their chance to make statements on Inter Dominion opening night at Albion Park on Saturday.
The biggest winner was young trotting star Bet N Win, who snared the pole in the second of the two trotting heats.
In contrast, his main danger and prepost favourite for the final, Arcee Phoenix, has drawn outside the front row (gate seven).
Earlier, NZ’s other contender in the trotting series, old Oscar Bonavena, has drawn a back row trailing draw (gate nine) in his heat.
It’s close to ideal given the nine-year-old can get anxious and gallop when he draws the front row.
Over to the pacing series and the lone Kiwi flag bearer, the emerging Pinseeker, has drawn to land big early points from barrier three in the third of the three pacing heats.
The Jonny Cox-trained pacer has early speed and should settle forward, but does have the mighty Leap To Fame to contend with.
Against that, Leap To Fame’s exasperating run of awkward inside barriers continued when he landed gate eight (inside the back row) in the 2138m race.
Sure, history says his trainer-driver Grant Dixon will find a way off the inside and Leap To Fame will win, but the draw still adds intrigue.
Leap To Fame’s odds to win the final of $1.30 before the first round of heats are run tomorrow night (Saturday) is unheard of.
Ponder all the greats that have come before him and none have been so dominant going into the start of the sport’s most iconic and biggest event.
Most felt the great Kiwi stayer Lazarus was a “moral” at Gloucester Park in the 2017 series he won, but he started $2 in the final.
Two years earlier, the wayward but rampaging Lennytheshark proved a class above his rivals at Gloucester Park, but he still started at $2.10.
More recently, Ultimate Sniper stifled betting at $1.40 for the 2019 Auckland final, but many forget he was actually $7 before a heat was run.
You have to go back 20 years to one of the greatest of all Kiwis, Elsu, in the Auckland series of 2005 to find a horse anywhere near as short as Leap To Fame before a heat was run. He still started $1.55 when won all three heats and romped home in the final.
This is rarefied air and while you want to say it shouldn’t happen, Leap To Fame deserved to be this short.
If, or as many think, when he wins this final, anyone who doesn’t rate him alongside any of the all-time greats is kidding themselves.
On any measure – prize money, winning strike rate, major wins, the way he does it and longevity – Leap To Fame is as good as any of them.
Even champion horseman Luke McCarthy, who trains and drives the defending Inter Dominion champion and main danger, Don Hugo, admits he faces an enormous task.
Don Hugo won’t have it easy on night one after drawing the back row (gate 10) in the second pacing heat.
