Epic clash brewing in Blacks A Fake

The challenges keep coming for champion pacer Leap To Fame.

Fresh from his Christchurch raid last month, Leap To Fame is home and will return to racing at his beloved Albion Park track to chase another Group 1 win in Saturday night’s $250,000 Blacks A Fake (10pm).

But, as was the case at Addington, Luke McCarthy is the man standing in his way.

While it was McCarthy’s new star Kingman who stunningly upstaged Leap To Fame in one of the great NZ Cups, his hopes rest with the highly-decorated Don Hugo this time.

Don Hugo is already a winner of an Inter Dominion, TAB Eureka and Miracle Mile.

Importantly, in the latter, he upstaged Leap To Fame at Menangle back on March 8.

That said, Leap To Fame has emphatically won their three clashes since.

And Leap To Fame gets back to Albion Park where he hasn’t been beaten for more than two years. Yes, two years.

Since finishing a desperately unlucky fourth in the Be Good Johnny Sprint on November 4, 2023, Leap To Fame has strung together 23 successive wins at The Creek.

But defeats at three of his past five starts and a much better barrier draw for Don Hugo have set the scene for an epic stoush on Saturday night.

Punters have jumped on Don Hugo from gate four, crunching him in from $3.20 to $2.50.

In contrast, Leap To Fame has eased from $1.50 to $1.75 from the back row (gate 10).

The race doesn’t stop there with emerging Queensland star The Janitor kept safe at $5 despite a wide back row draw (gate 12).

The Janitor, a Chantal Turpin-trained stablemate of last month’s Addington trotting star Gus, won three on end before a massive second in last Saturday night’s Group 2 Sunshine Sprint.

The Janitor sat parked outside star speedster Hi Manameisjeff and went down by just a head in blistering times.

The mile rate was a scorching 1min49.3sec for 1660m and they dashed home in 52.4sec, the fastest official last half ever run at Albion Park.

Don Hugo came from a mile back and wide to hit the line strongly in fourth spot in that race.

Leap To Fame, who returned to winning form in the Group 1 NZ free-for-all just three days after his brave second in the NZ Cup, deserves to be favourite, but the challenges continue to come for the rising seven-year-old.

For complete race entries, click here.

by Adam Hamilton, for Harness Racing New Zealand