October
MarchThe genuine article
During the last 30 years I have filled various roles (owner, trainer, driver, employee) in both the standardbred and thoroughbred industries, and I was elated to see the performance last Sunday of Blacks A Fake in his fifth Inter-Dominion Grand Final.
As a "cross-code" fan, I’ve often been bemused that, while many harness-racing people duly acknowledge the efforts of their thoroughbred counterparts, it seems relatively few thoroughbred folk have the same interest in their standardbred cousins.
It’s my experience that the typical standardbred is far and away better prepared for the demands of its event than the average thoroughbred but, that aside, has there been a galloper in the last 50 years (I wish I’d seen Tulloch) with a statistical record to equal Blacks A Fake?
His winning strike rate of better than 74 precent from 82 starts to date is phenomenal by horse racing standards (consider that he has finished first or second at 72 of those 82 starts — 87 percent!).
His stats compare more than favourably with those of the three gallopers I believe most worthy of the label "champion" — with respect to many outstanding horses — Kingston Town (73%-83%), Manikato (61%-80%) and Sunline (66%-85%).
Blacks A Fake raced at two and three years of age, but missed his entire four-year-old season with a hock injury. He did not race for a total of 17 months (and, yes, he too contracted EI).
Anyone who saw his win from a handicap of 30 metres in the 2008 A.G. Hunter Cup — and thrilled to Dan Mielecki’s call — must have been literally speechless.
His record of four wins and one second (beaten a neck by a 20-1 chance) in the last five Inter-Dominion Grand Finals is an achievement that legitimately rivals — and arguably exceeds — those of Kingston Town and Makybe Diva.
That he delivered a lifetime-best winning mile rate of 1:53.8 as a rising 10-year-old over the 2300m journey of last weekend’s final is the exclamation mark to a stellar career.
(For the thoroughbred fraternity, that equates to 11½ furlongs at better than 14¼ seconds per furlong — and he was PACING!).
Of course, statistical comparison rarely satisfies everyone, and many racing fans are emotionally tied to their own favourites, but if humbling achievements, breathtaking courage, and exhilarating talent are the price of admission to the "Temple of Champions", then Blacks A Fake owes nothing to the racing world.
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