Nicholas Cage plays leading role in blockbuster Founders Cup performance

Nicholas Cage made his name as an actor for his performances in action films and big budget summer blockbusters in the 1990’s. His harness racing namesake may have waited until the Autumn of 2023 to deliver his biggest performance, but Nicholas Cage (Art Major) well and truly announced his arrival in tonight’s (Mar. 10) $30,000 G3 Founders Cup at Alexandra Park.

The season’s first Open Class group race wasn’t quite a red-carpet affair. Still, some of the sport’s biggest names were under the ‘ribbon of light,’ including last start New Zealand Derby winner, Akuta and the reigning New Zealand Cup champion, Copy That.

While on paper, Nicholas Cage, as the lowest-rated pacer in the six-horse field looked likely to play only a supporting cast role, it took all of two minutes flat for the Andrew and Lynn Neal trained pacer to upstage his heavyweight rivals and claim the G3 feature.

Using his customary gate speed to lead easily from the plumb draw of barrier one, Matthew White and Nicholas Cage shot straight to an easy lead with the field going through a soft first quarter of 34.4 in Indian file and barrier draw order.

That saw the star pacers Akuta and Copy That out the back and with a wee bit of work to do, as White ramped up the tempo with a little over 1000m left to run. Major Perry was the first away from the markers, forcing Akuta and Brent Mangos to work three wide out and around runners to find the chair.

With the speed now on, pundits watched with bated breath for the expected runs from Akuta and Copy That but with the latter languishing at the rear of the field and Nicholas Cage leaving Akuta flat footed at the top of the straight, neither of the favourites ever looked like running the son of Art Major down.

“He’s pretty hard to catch when he rolls along in front and we were pretty happy to come up with the one draw to use his gate speed and he got the job done well,” said his regular reinsman, Matty White.

“You definitely expect the quality of the opposition to give it a good nudge, but when I went for him, he responded well, and he’s just a nice horse,” he said.

The winning time was 2:00.0 for the 1700m journey with a mile rate of 1:53.1 and closing sectionals of 55.0 and 28.1. It was the Art Major gelding’s sixth win from just 11 starts for $60,388 in stake money.

NICHOLAS CAGE REPLAY

Nicholas Cage had shown last term that he was a horse with a bright future having upstaged several handy intermediate pacers in a period that saw him win four starts in the Spring in quick succession.

It was enough for the Neal’s to send him south for a New Zealand Derby campaign that never quite went to plan.

The times he had been running on his home track in the North Island prior to his departure when allowed to set his own terms indicated that he was a pacer of some promise. And despite tonight’s success, White’s comments after the race indicated he is far from the finished product.

“He’s still pretty lightly raced and inexperienced and still learning. He has got into this grade pretty quick, but he can certainly run the times. His tractability has to improve a wee bit but the more times he gets out there the better he will get in that regard,” said White.

Nicholas Cage is out of the stakes performed Jereme’s Jet mare, Helena Jet, who had it not been for the wonder mare, Adore Me, might very well have won a G1 having run second to the champ in the 4YO Diamond and Queen of Hearts in 2014 where she was beaten half a length.

With that said, the winner of 13 races was a very good mare for breeder Pat Laboyrie and she has wasted no time in passing on her speed and toughness to her foals.

The first three foals have now won 14 races between them, with the first two fillies in Panda Girl (Rock N Roll Heaven) and Jemma (Mach Three) now at stud.

Laboyrie sold Nicholas Cage for $40,000 to co-owner, Grant Enyon at the 2020 Karaka Sales, and he remembers the horse well having reared him as a foal on his property in Cambridge.

“He was as good as gold at home and a stunning colt and had a lovely personality. I thought I might have gotten a bit more than $40,000 for him but there were a lot of people coming up to me and saying that Helena Jet didn’t have enough depth in her pedigree,” said Laboyrie.

“I know the Neal’s have had a lot of time for him since he was broken in and he’s taken a while to come too it, but it’s great to see him out there doing the job now. I didn’t think he was capable of beating that field tonight, but Matty White only looked like he was shaking the one reign at him, and he did it pretty comfortably.

“I haven’t bred his mother for two years, but I have a cracking two-year-old full brother by Art Major who if you saw it would make your eyes pop out of your head,” he laughed.

“I don’t know if I have bred a foal like him in my fourty years breeding. I’ve also got a very nice yearling by Vincent, but with how Nicholas Cage us going, I might need to start thinking about breeding Helena Jet again this season,” he said.

For complete Auckland race results, click here.

by Brad Reid, for Harnesslink