Australian champion Leap To Fame faces a new challenge in next Tuesday’s $1 million IRT New Zealand Cup.
The Queensland pacing hero is dominating the market for the great race, opening at $1.60, and is a confirmed starter after landing in Christchurch, as opposed to last season when he waslisted in the Cup field but never made the trip across the Tasman because of illness.
While Leap To Fame is undoubtedly the best horse in the famous race, he will start from the middle of a full front line in a standing start race for the first time in his career, putting him in a more claustrophobic situation than he would be used to.
Leap To Fame has won his only two standing starts and has shown great manners his entire career but faces a different test on Tuesday, with locals such as Republican Party, Merlin and Akuta, who are more used to capacity field standing starts, likely to get at least an early advantage over him.
Republican Party opened as the $4.80 second favourite with the market so skewed towards the top two that Kingman, from New South Wales, is paying $8 as the third favourite and plenty of open class regulars are paying big money, such as Akuta at $21.
There is also an Australian-trained favourite in the $400,000 Renwick Farms Dominion, but one far less proven than Leap To Fame, with Victorian trotter Jilliby Ballerini at $2.80 even though she has little experience at this level.
Local stars Oscar Bonavena ($5.50) and Muscle Mountain at $6.50 are on the next lines of betting with TAB Trot and Cambridge winner Arcee Phoenix is at $11.
Tuesday’s meeting also includes the Nevele R Fillies Final and Woodlands Sires’ Stakes, both at Group 1 level.
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.
