Trot Insider has learned that Mirage Hanover has been retired, sold and is about to start stallion duty.

One month ago, Redland Rocket Man tied a world record with his 1:46.4 performance at Woodbine Mohawk Park on Sept. 12. In that mile, he just missed the 1:46.3 mark of Mirage Hanover, the fastest Canadian-sired sophomore in harness racing history. Mirage Hanover produced the 1:46.3 clocking at The Red Mile on Oct. 6, 2024, and then went on to win both his elimination and final of the Breeders Crown for three-year-old male pacers.

The son of Bettors Delight-Mayhem Hanover amassed $1.08 million and won six of 20 starts in that three-year-old season after going four-for-nine with wins in three Ontario Sires Stakes Golds and the Nassagaweya Stakes as a rookie. As he prepared for his four-year-old campaign in a qualifier on April 26, 2025 at The Meadowlands, the stallion suffered an injury that would prevent it entirely. After being pulled up in the mile, it was determined that the Jake Leamon trainee suffered a fractured sesamoid on his front left hoof.

Leamon said at the time that after having a screw surgically inserted, the stallion’s injury was healing. But Mirage Hanover would not make it back to the races.

"He trained to race bike speed but didn’t quite have the mobility he once had with the screw in, and we were recommended to stand him,” Leamon said. “I'm very excited about his future as a stallion."

Mirage Hanover will stand at Luke and Belinda McCarthy’s Cobbitty Equine Farm in New South Wales, Australia. Now owned by the McCarthys after racing in Canada and the U.S. for Marvin Rounick, Mirage Hanover has a first-year fee of $5,500 AUD.

The five-year-old earned $1,298,857 and won 10 of 29 lifetime starts with seven stakes wins, along with place finishes in the Little Brown Jug final, Cane Pace and Matron. He was a star for Leamon, helping to propel the trainer to a career-high $1.39 million in earnings in 2024. Also contributing to that number was Mirage Hanover’s half-brother, Mad Max Hanover, whom Leamon conditions for Rounick. That seven-year-old Always B Miki gelding has won 23 times in 98 starts and earned $985,264 but has not been seen since he broke stride and was distanced in an Open at The Meadowlands on Dec. 20, 2025.

According to Leamon, the five-time stakes winner and runner-up in six Grand Circuit events is nearing a return with hopes to qualify "sometime in October.”

(Standardbred Canada)