Property developer Kevin Seymour’s wild ride from heart attack to the Triple Crown

The past six months have been a wild ride for richlister property tycoon Kevin Seymour who now declares he “believes in miracles”.

Kevin Seymour is the first to admit that it’s been a tumultuous last six months.

From being at death’s door after a heart attack to the euphoria around his boom pacer Leap To Fame winning harness racing’s Triple Crown, it has been a wild ride for the property tycoon who now declares he “believes in miracles”.

When he was laying on a hospital bed late last year Mr Seymour’s mind was set firmly on the horse he now calls The Champ and the Inter Dominion in Brisbane.

The past six months have been a wild ride for property tycoon Kevin Seymour. Picture: Glenn Hunt

The sport has been his great passion for 55 years and at the age of 83 he and wife Kay believed they finally had a horse capable of winning all three legs of the Triple Crown.

But after the heart attack the property developer faced the possibility of not seeing Leap To Fame race.

“It’s hard to imagine. Here I was for 12 months in anticipation of having a horse in the Inter Dominion and four weeks beforehand I was laying in a hospital bed wondering whether I would ever see a racetrack again,” he said.

Leap To Fame won the Inter Dominion and six weeks later the second leg of the Triple Crown – the $500,000 AG Hunter Cup. On March 9 he won the final leg – the $1m Miracle Mile to etch himself into Australian harness racing lore.

Trained and driven by Grant Dixon, the standardbred five-year-old has been touted as potentially Australia’s greatest pacer, becoming the first horse since Preux Chevalier 39 years ago to win all three major races in a single campaign.

But Mr Seymour said the odds were against them in the Miracle Mile with Leap To Fame being drawn very wide – in the so-called death chair.

“I said on the night that it was the Carnival of Miracles and I do now believe in miracles. To achieve that was the peak of our dreams in harness racing. He drew very wide in the race and I said to people they may well have drawn him out in the carpark he was so wide from the running line. It was a phenomenal effort,” he said.

“We have been on cloud nine since that night and the fact that you get people writing to you and people congratulating in the street is incredible. I must admit I do feel younger since we’ve won.”

Leap To Fame wins the Miracle Mile.

Mr Seymour said without Mr Dixon and his wife Trista’s expertise they would not have been on the journey to the Triple Crown. And it was the close relationship between Mr Dixon and Leap To Fame that proved crucial.

“He calls him Larry and he said he talks to him in the race and tells him what he wants to do and he does it. The horse is almost human,” Mr Seymour said.

Leap To Fame’s Miracle Mile win was the fourth fastest time in the race’s history and it took him to 35 wins from 45 starts, along with career earnings of $2,765,957. If he stays healthy he is a good bet to beat Blacks A Fake’s Australasian prize money record of $4,575,438.

Mr Seymour said Leap To Fame was having a well earned spell before resuming racing in the

Queensland Winter Carnival in June/July. Then they’re aiming to take him to New Zealand in November to test him against the best horses in Australasia before returning to Australia’s summer circuit.

But they won’t be going to the US.

“We’ve spoken to a lot of the major trainers in the US and the general consensus of opinion is that he has nothing to prove in the US. The prize money isn’t huge and the risk of taking him over and him getting sick is too great,” Mr Seymour said.

“He’s won every major race in Australia. Other than going to New Zealand he hasn’t got a lot to prove now.”

Kay and Kevin Seymour with the Inter Dominion Cup. Picture: Kate Lockyer

For the founder and executive chairman of the Brisbane-based Seymour Group, harness racing has been both a passion and a haven.

“It’s something a bit different. It’s completely separate from business. No one asks me about business and I don’t talk about business. I enjoy the hard working decent people in harness racing. I enjoy their company. There’s no sense of entitlement. It’s a blue collar workers sport and in my mind they’re the salt of the earth,” he said.

With a fortune through property development made, a long marriage, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, Mr Seymour considers himself both lucky in business and life.

And it was a large dollop of luck that steered him towards being a first time owner.

Back in 1967 before his development career took off he was looking for some extra cash and found a second job at the Albion Park Harness Racing Club. Mr Seymour was a ticket seller and gained his first pacer after a 10 to 1 bet that earned him enough money to buy his first pacer Crazy Chief for $2000.

At Albion he became the club’s accountant and then three-time chairman, and in the process one of the major figures in the sport.

Mr Seymour said Leap To Fame has captured the public’s imagination and they were determined to use the momentum gained from the Triple Crown to showcase the pacer to the general public.

Part of that momentum includes giving 5 per cent of their Leap To Fame’s prizemoney to charity and also giving a patron at the track an opportunity to go into a draw and 5 per cent of the prizemoney as well.

“We are looking at a way to give something back not only charity but also patrons at the course,” he said.

“I have a policy of not what racing can do for me but what I can do for racing.”