Champion trotting mare Keayang Zahara won’t be at Melton Saturday night, but will still headline a powerhouse interstate raid on Menangle’s huge Group 1 meeting a week later.
Despite her absence from the $60,000 Sumthingaboutmaori Trot, trainers Marg and Paddy Lee will still have two key runners in Jilliby Ballerini and Jilliby Dreamlover.
It gives Jilliby Ballerini a chance to snare a Group 1 win of her own after finishing second to Keayang Zahara the past five times they have met in a major race, including the $NZ530,000 TAB Trot at Cambridge in NZ last Friday week.
“Zahara is fine, we just decided to give her an extra week to recover from NZ. She’ll go straight to Menangle,” Paddy Lee said.
The Menangle target is the $100,000 Group 1 Macarthur Mile, the race Keayang Zahara suffered her only defeat from 29 starts in when narrowly rundown late by Susan Is Her Name last year.
“That’ll be her last run before a spell. She won’t go to the Inter Dominion,” Lee said.
“Jilliby Ballerini and ‘Dreamlover’, if she goes well first-up this week, will also go to Menangle the week after.”
Team Lee starts their Menangle raid this week with new Victorian Country Cups “King” Jilliby Nitro in the free-for-all (race one) and Isthisjustfantasy drawn wide (gate 11) in the Robin Dundee, the last qualifier for next week’s $200,000 Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Mile at Menangle.
They also have lightly raced filly Keayang Passion from gate two in the second of three NSW Oaks heats, along with Imperial Monarch in the Trotters’ Mile (race nine).
Team Lee is one of four powerhouse interstate stables aiming to Menangle over the next fortnight.
Fellow Victorians Emma Stewart and Clayton Tonkin, Leap To Fame’s trainer Grant Dixon and the rampaging Queensland couple Chatal Turpin and Pete McMullen are the others.
Stewart and Tonkin have four runners on Saturday, starting with last year’s star filly Beach Diamond in the Robin Dundee.
They then have runners in each of the three Oaks heats: Willows Girl (race six), Ravishing Ruby (seven) and Arrhythmia (eight).
Dixon, who won the Miracle Mile with Leap To Fame at his last Menangle visit on March 14, has last year’s NSW Oaks winner Cool And Classy drawn well (gate three) in the Robin Dundee and Amylee from the pole in the third Oaks heat.
The Queensland-based McMullen and Turpin have the strongest team with five runners, starting with Arrive (gate eight) in Robin Dundee.
Their Oaks runners are Stripes and Alwaysbjoy (race six), Havtimetodream (seven) and Ima Booty Shaker (eight).
Havtimetodream creates the most interest having won her first three starts across from NZ for the stable before a close second in the Raith Memorial at Menangle last month.
Although she hasn’t raced since, Havtimetodream smashed the clock beating last year’s Inter Dominion runner-up Speak The Truth by 20m in an Albion Park trial on April 7.
Her 1min49.5sec mile rate for 1660m was just 0.9sec outside Leap To Fame’s track record.
