The last time Leap To Fame raced in New Zealand he beat Republican Party and Merlin at Addington in November. Photo / Ajay Berry
NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS
What: New Zealand harness racing’s biggest night of the year.
When: This Friday.
Where: Cambridge Raceway.
Highlights: $1 million Race By Sport Nation, $530,000 TAB Trot, $50,000 IRT Sires’ Stakes Trot, $50,000 Magness Benrow Sires’ Stakes Fillies, $50,000 Garrards Sires’ Stakes Males, $40,000 Sapphire Stakes.
After party: featuring Drax Project.
Can I go? Yes, general admission and hospitality tickets still available.
What’s next? Barrier draw reveal on Trackside (Sky Ch 62) at 7.30pm on Tuesday.
Champion pacer Leap To Fame is coming a long way to pick a fight with a rival from down the road.
But when trainer-driver Grant Dixon lands in Auckland tonight with the hot favourite for Friday night’s $1 million slot race at Cambridge, the first barrier draw he checks after his own will be where The Janitor is set to start from.
Leap To Fame is returning to defend his The Race by Sport Nation title, which he won in track record time at Cambridge last season when he sat parked outside his Miracle Mile conqueror Don Hugo and crushed him.
The barrier reveal for that race and the $530,000 TAB Trot will be held at 7.30pm tonight at Cambridge, around the time Leap To Fame will be leaving from Sydney for Auckland.
Dixon, in his own laconic way, suggests his magnificent stallion is racing every bit as well as he was last season, which is in itself remarkable for a seven-year-old who has had 86 career starts and been in plenty of dogfights.
“You would say on his form he is at least as good as last year,” says Dixon.
“He doesn’t seem much different, he hasn’t lost any of his speed or his fight and he is very sound.
“So we are coming over very happy with the horse.”
Punters who have taken the $2.10 Futures price or simply love an all-time great will be hoping Leap To Fame can draw to lead rather than sit parked, the latter having so often been his cross to bear in the biggest races of recent years.
Dixon says where Leap To Fame ultimately ends up filling on Friday night comes down to where his rivals draw, as much as the champ.
While Leap To Fame isn’t blessed with the blazing gate speed that has been the trademark of some of Australia’s greatest pacers, neither have many of the other Aussie favourites in a race the visitors look certain to dominate.
Two-time New Zealand Cup winner and Leap To Fame’s older half brother and sometimes nemesis Swayzee is no gate flyer and neither is The Janitor, while New Zealand Cup winner Kingman has slightly more gate speed but not enough to suggest he would lead from wherever he wants if he draws the front line.
“If I could pick a barrier I’d like 3,” says Dixon.
“But just as important as where we draw is where some of those others draw.
“I wouldn’t like to see Swayzee or The Janitor draw to get an easy lead and us drawn somewhere where we had to work and come sit outside either of them.
“So drawing inside them would really help, like barrier 3 with two horses inside us who want to take a trail,” he scoffs hopefully.
While Kingman beat Leap To Fame in both the New Zealand Cup in November and the Shepparton Cup in January, his recent form has been far less convincing, with just one second placing in his last five starts.
Dixon, though, is wary of the genius of his trainer-driver Luke McCarthy.
“I don’t know where Kingman is at but if anybody can turn him around it will be Luke, he is just that good.”
But considering all his rivals in the 10-pacer field that will be split five apiece between the Kiwis and the Australians, Dixon says it is fellow Queensland pacer The Janitor that he fears most.
“He is getting better all the time and is racing really well,” says Dixon.
“If he has a better trip than us he will be the hardest to beat.”
The Janitor is in to second-favouritism for the Race by Sport Nation after overcoming a wide barrier draw to win the Flying Mile at Cambridge last Thursday, so he also has the advantage of being well settled into New Zealand for trainer Chantal Turpin.
Swayzee is the third-favourite at $6 pre-draw, ahead of Kingman, with We Walk By Faith the most favoured of the locals at $14, showing the enormous imbalance between the New Zealand and Australian open-class elite at the moment.
Exceptional trotting talent Keayang Zahara is one of the shortest-priced major race futures favourites in New Zealand racing history at $1.08 ahead of the barrier reveal for the TAB Trot tonight.
Both draw reveals and extensive analysis of the races and markets, including interviews with the horses’ connections, will be part of a The Box Seat show on Trackside 1 (Sky Ch 62) live from 7.30pm tonight.
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.