Victoria’s powerhouse trotting stable has one hand on its first Great Southern Star crown.
Marg and Paddy Lee are fresh off the back of an outstanding 2025 season which reaped an incredible 104 winners from just 386 starters at a strike rate of 26.94 per cent, and the mother-and-son training partnership hold all the aces with the two key chances in this year’s iconic heats-into-final series.
Megastar mare Keayang Zahara is the overwhelming $1.20 favourite on Sportsbet’s all-in market to win the $250,000 final, which would secure her connections an additional $500,000 bonus as part of a Summer of Glory carnival promotion.
She has taken the harness racing world by storm in the last couple of years, with her record sitting at 23 wins from 24 starts heading into the biggest night of her career.
Keayang Zahara’s gun stablemate Jilliby Ballerini looms as the biggest danger according to the punters, with Sportsbet keeping her safe at $6.
Outside those, Eddie Tappe’s seven-year-old success story Im Bobby is on the third line of betting at $15 ahead of reigning Inter Dominion hero Arcee Phoenix at $21 and fellow Lee runner Jilliby Dreamlover, who is regarded as a $26 chance alongside Chris Lang’s talented veteran Ollivici.
Watts Up Partytime produced incredible long-odds wins in both his heat and the final of last year’s Great Southern Star for trainer Andy Gath, but has since been transferred back to New South Wales-based conditioner Rickie Alchin. He tuned up for this assignment with a Menangle victory in his first run back in the care of Alchin last weekend and is rated a $34 prospect to claim back-to-back titles.
The Great Southern Star is one of the most unique events on the Victorian harness racing calendar, and asks trainers, drivers and horses to call on a wide range of qualities.
The top three placegetters in each heat (races two and three) automatically progress to the final, with the next four fastest horses on gross time also finding their spot in the Group 1 showdown as race eight on the card. Following the qualifiers, finalists are drawn out and connections tasked with selecting a barrier for the decider. So qualifying is the first hurdle, but recovering, finding a good starting position and then delivering on the big stage are other crucial challenges for those involved.
