Down Under - NZ Cup build-up
Adam Hamilton • September 15th, 2025 10:49 AM
(This article is appearing in the latest edition of Harness Racing Update - the USA's biggest harness racing publication)
If there is a Holy Grail in Down Under harness racing, it is the magnificent few days at Addington Raceway in the second week of November.
New Zealand Cup Week – or just “Cup Week” to the Kiwis, has it all.
It’s not just a huge week for harness racing, it’s a mecca for racing in general with all three racing codes – harness, thoroughbreds and greyhounds - holding their annual Cup race meeting.
That will change soon with NZ joining other areas around the world and banning greyhound racing from the end of July, next year. So, Thursday November 13 this year will be the final NZ Cup for greyhounds.
While the greyhound participants and fans are devastated and furious, many general racing fans are disappointed, too … the Cup Week show will go on.
Unlike many other places in the world, the backbone of NZ Cup Week is and always has been the NZ Trotting Cup. Don’t be fooled by the name, it’s an ode to history and actually a race for pacers.
But it goes further, the now $NZ1 million NZ Trotting Cup is the single biggest race of ANY code in NZ.
That may be challenged in time with the advent of the rich NZB Kiwi race for thoroughbreds, run at Auckland’s Ellerslie racecourse in March.
Even if that happens, the NZ Cup will always be THE race that defines NZ.
First run in 1904, the Cup’s Honour Roll is littered with the biggest names in NZ harness history, some multiple times.
False Step, trained and driven by the great Cec Devine, created history winning the race three times (successively) from 1958 to 1960.
It took until the remarkable Terror To Love (2011, 12 and ’13) for another horse to do that. None have since.
The mighty Cardigan Bay won the 1963 Cup.
Many have won it twice, most recently superstars like Il Vicolo (1995-96), Just An Excuse (2003-04), tireless Aussie-owned stayer Flashing Red (2006-07), the incomparable Lazarus (2016-17) and Copy That in 2021-22.
The powerhouse Aussie stayer Swayzee became the latest dual winner last year in the most remarkable of circumstances.
Trainer Jason Grimson took Swayzee to race at Parkes – a return float trip of almost 12 hours from his Menangle base – on the Friday night, less than four days before the NZ Cup.
On Sunday, Swayzee was flown from Sydney to Auckland, swapped planes for a flight to Christchurch and arrived in the host city little more than 24 hours before the Cup.
But he still won even more impressively than the previous year for Grimson, young gun NSW driver Cam Hart and leviathan owner Mick Boots, who owns almost 300 horses across Australia and NZ.
Swayzee will return this year for November 11, trying to put his name alongside False Step and Terror To Love as the only three-time winners.
The enormity of Swayzee’s deeds so far are best underlined by the scarcity of Aussie-trained winners in the NZ Cup.
In fact, he is only the fourth pacer trained in Australia to win the race. Steel Jaw was the first in 1983 and My Lightning Blue joined him in 1987.
It was then an agonizing 28 year wait until Arden Rooney became the first in 2015.
And that was historic with trailblazing Aussie driver, Kerryn Manning, becoming the first female to drive an NZ Cup winner. She trained Arden Rooney, too.
Eight years later and Swayzee’s first win made him only the second Australian-trained Cup winner in 36 years.
Although he went back and won again last year, history says it’s still a huge task.
But most think this year will be different and history is irrelevant.
That’s because Swayzee will be joined at Addington by his arch-rival, who also happens to be his younger half-brother, Leap To Fame.
As great as Swayzee is, Leap To Fame is better. They’ve clashed six times and Leap To Fame leads 4-2 from their six clashes.
They are clearly the best two pacers, not just in Australia, but Australasia.
Many insist Leap To Fame is the best pacer in the world.
Excitingly, they will clash again before Addington with both headed to the $A250,000 Group 1 Victoria Cup at Melton on October 18.
It’s a race Swayzee won last year, but many feel that’s only because Leap To Fame fell ill and was scratched just days before the race.
That illness also saw Leap To Fame’s planned trip to last year’s NZ Cup aborted, so he has unfinished business.
Leap To Fame only whet the appetite of the Kiwis, who love a great horse as much as any fans in the world, when he made his first trip to NZ for a career-best and crushing win in the huge $NZ1 million Race by Betcha at Cambridge back on April 4.
For all the accolades that gained him and the statement it made, winning a Cup with all the history and status around the race, would be much bigger.
And Leap To Fame’s owner, Kevin Seymour, knows that.
Seymour and his wife, Kay, have won every major race in Australia, some multiple times.
Leap To Fame filled their one void when he won the 2024 Miracle Mile.
“We’re big on history and the NZ Cup holds such a special place for any harness fan in our part of the world,” Seymour said.
“We were shattered when he couldn’t make the trip last year when we had everything booked, but the horse had to come first.”
Leap To Fame, who snared his second Inter Dominion at Albion Park on July 19, is slated to make his first public appearance since in a trial at the same track on Tuesday week.
Then comes a lead-up race or two at Albion Park, before a return flight from Brisbane to Melbourne for a hit-and-run tilt at the Victoria Cup.
“He’ll get a week or so back home where he loves it most after the Victoria Cup, then we’ll float him to Sydney (10 hours) and he’ll be on that flight to Auckland and the connector down to Christchurch,” Seymour said.
“We’ve just got our fingers crossed it all goes smoothly now after the heartbreak of last year.
“But he handled the trip to NZ for the Cambridge race so well earlier this year, it has given us all great confidence.”
While the Kiwis are proud and fiercely competitive, Leap To Fame seems to have transcended that, especially since the display of greatness he gave them at Cambridge.
As I strolled around a largely empty Addington at last Friday night’s race meeting, so many Kiwis I spoke to had the same comment or question … “I can’t wait to see Leap To Fame here in the flesh in two months” or “are you sure Leap To Fame’s coming?”
Yes he is, and Addington and the broader NZ is waiting with open arms.
Bring on November 11.
