IT'S been a year like no other for the Bendigo Harness Racing Club and track records.
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Six records have either been broken or equalled during 2020, with another two marks set during Saturday night's meeting at Lord's Raceway.
Trained by David Aiken and driven by son Josh, Leonidas recorded a blistering rate of 1:51:7 for 1650m in winning the NR 75 to 120 pace.
The performance broke the previous 1:51:9 mark set by the Maree Campbell-trained Belittled on February 13 and equalled by the Shaun McNaulty-trained Hashatg on April 15.
Just three races later, the Brent Lilley-trained trotter Robbie Royale added his name to the record books with an astonishing victory in the 2150m from a standing start.
His time of 1:59:8 easily eclipsed the long-standing 2:01:0 mark set by King Kipper in 2009.
A second-straight Lord's Raceway win for Leonidas made it three-in-a-row in total for the four-year-old gelding, who has gone from strength-to-strength since his arrival at Avenel.
The son of Mach Three, out of Rogers Joy, has won four of six starts for his new stable, with his other two runs producing seconds.
Winning reinsman Josh Aiken said the track-record performance was set up by a slick 25.8 first quarter.
"He's a really class horse and really thrives on the way the race was run," he said.
"He's been a class horse since we got him into the stable from Blake Fitzpatrick. He ran two really good seconds to Lochinvar Art, who is a proven champion.
"Every other race has been a win, so Lochinvar Art is the only horse to beat him in Victoria.
"He's just a real professional.
"We are actually getting some metropolitan races in Shepparton and Bendigo in the coming weeks and then we will be able to race at Melton in July, so he's one horse who will get a chance to race for some better prizemoney.
"The horse is going well and the owners deserve to be racing for better prizemoney."
Aiken revealed it was Alford, who finished second on the other Aiken-trained runner Ideal Star, who had first alerted him to the possibility of a track record.
"The first quarter they broke 26.0, they don't go much quicker than that. It felt like it was pretty genuine from the 800m onwards," he said.
"I actually pulled up next to Chris Alford and Josh Duggan and we were all guessing what the mile rate would be - I was guessing around the 1:52 mark.
"Chris Alford actually guessed it would be a track record and obviously knew that we'd gone a bit faster than I thought we had.
"Shepparton has been a bit the same as Bendigo, the track record got broken twice in a fortnight. Bendigo is nice and fast at the moment."
Meanwhile, a brilliant front-running drive by Alford on Robbie Royale gave the six-year-old gelding his third win in four starts since arriving in Australia from New Zealand.
Those wins have been achieved at three different tracks, starting at Cranbourne on March 16, followed by Kilmore (April 28) and Bendigo on Saturday night.
Other track records set this year include Code Bailey's brilliant 2650m (mobile start) effort in winning the $70,000 Group 2 Bendigo Pacing Cup and the Brad Angove-trained trotter Sundons Courage's May 7 performance over 2150m (mobile start).
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