‘Menangle boost’ could impact Cambridge slot races tonight

Cambridge’s slot contenders test the power of the "Menangle boost".

• The “Menangle boost” may influence tonight’s mega money slot races at Cambridge.
• Horses racing at Menangle become fitter and faster due to its challenging conditions.
• Don Hugo and The Locomotive, both Menangle regulars, are strong contenders tonight.

A thing without a name could be a crucial factor in tonight’s two mega money slot races at Cambridge.

Since it is as yet unnamed, we will call it the “Menangle boost”.

It is the boost in performance horses get after regular racing at the Menangle track outside Sydney, the hardest harness racing in this part of the world.

Menangle is like nothing else in Australasian harness racing with the searing miles and relentless style turning those who can handle it into fitter and therefore faster horses.

Since Menangle opened in 2008 a disproportionate number of Grand Circuit races have been won by the New South Wales horses who are most exposed to its rigours.

“It is definitely a factor,” says champion horseman Luke McCarthy, who has Don Hugo in tonight’s Race by Betcha.

“I notice it when I take horses who have been racing well at home [Menangle] up to the Brisbane winter carnival. They get back to the 1000m tracks and just fly around them.”

Don Hugo could do just that tonight, with all of his three career highlights being major Menangle wins and he could feel very bold whizzing around Cambridge against the marker pegs tonight.

Another Menangle regular is The Locomotive, favourite for tonight’s TAB Trot and his trainer-driver Brad Hewitt agrees with McCarthy that those who can handle Menangle thrive away from it.

“It makes them so fit because the racing is so hard,” says Hewitt.

“I was in the Inter Dominion Pacing Final with Captains Knock back in December and I have never been in a race like it. We went absolutely flat out all the way.

“It makes them better horses when they go back to normal races.”

Plenty of the best horses in tonight’s two slot races have raced at Menangle recently, with Leap To Fame, Don’t Stop Dreaming and Merlin also competing at the Miracle Mile carnival last month but the longer horses are exposed to the 1400m track the better they seem to become.

The markets suggest the Menangle boost may be a very real thing at Cambridge 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.