Republican Party is the New Zealand pacer who has come closest to beating Leap To Fame. Photo / Ajay Berry
Rarely in the history of sport have the home team been so unloved.
But dive into the numbers behind tonight’s $1 million Race by Sport Nation and you can see why the bookies and punters have all but abandoned the five locals in the pacing slot race and already conceded the $530,000 TAB Trot to Keayang Zahara.
In a remarkable deviation from what was been the usual punting pattern for much of this century, the first five favourites for tonight’s 2200m mobile pacing slot race at Cambridge are all Australian-trained.
Which means the five locals are the outsiders.
That would never have happened in a New Zealand horse race before.
It is even more incredible when you consider the local team comprise reigning Horse of the Year and multiple Group 1 winner Republican Party, while Merlin is a past winner of this race, has won $1.8m and never been unplaced in 10 starts at Cambridge.
Yet Merlin is paying $26 and Republican Party an unheard-of $31.
The lack of love is even more dramatic for Akuta, a former Auckland Cup winner, New Zealand Cup runner-up and $1.2m earner.
He is paying $61.
In an oddity for which there seems no logical explanation, We Walk By Faith is the most favoured of the Kiwis at $20, while Better Knuckle Up, who won two starts ago and finished fourth in the New Zealand Cup, is rated a $100 winning chance.
It gets worse in the TAB Trot, albeit all of Keayang Zahara’s rivals are at huge prices because of her historically tiny $1.05 price.
That still doesn’t take away from the fact that fellow Australian trotter Gus is the $12 second-favourite and Jilliby Ballerni the equal-third-favourite at $15.
That means nine of New Zealand’s best standardbreds line up in two of our richest races tonight and Belle Neige is rated the best winning chance at $15 from the ace draw in the TAB Trot.
Ironically, her co-trainer Michelle Wallis says she won’t be asking daughter Crystal Hackett, who drives Belle Neige, to hold the back of Keayang Zahara at all costs as when driven aggressively last start Belle Neige over-raced and dropped out.
“We don’t want to really use her gate speed and risk getting her fired up again,” Wallis said.
So can any of the Kiwis defy the odds and recent history to become the first New Zealand-trained horse to win one of the Cambridge slot races in six runnings (four of the Pace and two of the Trot)?
Probably not.
The reality is the best version of Leap To Fame, Swayzee or Kingman is better than the best version of Republican Party, who has been our top pacer for most of the last 18 months.
And you could make an argument his best form still only sits equal with that of the Aussie newcomer The Janitor.
Even when Republican Party had every possible chance in the last two Hunter Cups, tucked away on the markers, he wasn’t able to run past either Swayzee or Leap To Fame.
He isn’t going to get that kind of economical trip tonight and nor is he in career-best form.
The Trot is even harder to see an upset in as Keayang Zahara is not only a very special horse but relatively bombproof and a proven traveller who has settled in well since arriving in Auckland last Saturday.
Even if she picked a bad night to have a bad night and galloped, then her stablemate Jilliby Ballerini – or even more likely, Gus – would still be favoured to beat the Kiwis, unless Oscar Bonavena finds a time machine.
It isn’t impossible.
Oscar did, after all, beat another Aussie champion in Just Believe in the New Zealand Trotting Free-For-All at Addington in November, 2024.
That was 512 days ago.
That is how long it has been since one of New Zealand’s best harness horses has beaten the absolute best Australian of either gait.
That stat is likely to be 513 days tomorrow morning.
Leap To Fame: Some very odd and unusual horses have beaten Leap To Fame in his career but he has never been beaten by a New Zealand-trained horse.
Swayzee: The only New Zealand-trained horse to beat Swayzee since he joined the Jason Grimson stable was Tact McLeod (trained by Mark Jones) who was third with Swayzee fourth in the 2025 Miracle Mile.
The Janitor: The only New Zealand-trained horse to have beaten him is Major Hot (trained by David and Stacey White), who did so in two Derbys in Queensland in July 2024.
Kingman: Even though he won last year’s New Zealand Cup, he has the worst record against the Kiwis, with surprisingly three of his Kiwi race rivals tonight in Republican Party, We Walk By Faith and Better Knuckle Up having beaten him home in major races, albeit not winning them.
Major Hot and Pinseeker are other Kiwi-trained horses to beat him home in races.
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.