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<\/a><\/p>\nWhile Jilliby Ballerini, like every other three-year-old trotter, lived in Keayang Zahara\u2019s shadow last year, she\u2019s gone to a new level with nine wins from her 11 starts in 2025 and should be first to find the lead on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Lee drove them both to win their last starts, but will stick with Keayang Zahara this week. His cousin, Glen Craven, will partner Jilliby Ballerini.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe races don\u2019t get any easier,\u201d Lee said. \u201cWe\u2019ve always had an opinion of \u2018Ballerini\u2019, but Zahara was just a league above them all last season, here and in NZ.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut Ballerini has really developed and she couldn\u2019t have been more impressive last start.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing with Zahara is, we still don\u2019t know how good she is and how far she can go.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019d say if she had to sit outside Ballerini on what mare did last start, she shouldn\u2019t be able to beat her, but who knows with her.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Jilliby]()
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last season Jilliby Ballerini would have surrendered the lead straight to the superior Keayang Zahara, but Lee said Craven would be the master of his own tactics this time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just about us two. Keayang Stuka can really blast out and could be a chance to cross them all, while Derek The Jet gets out really quickly and he\u2019s drawn in between Ballerini and Zahara,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Ballerini did lead and it took me 400m or more to get around outside her, Glen might be happy to chance his arm and hold the front.\u201d<\/p>\n
The race has broader ramifications, too. It will decide if Keayang Zahara or Jilliby Ballerini head to NZ next month for two major races, including the $NZ400,000 Group 1 Dominion, at Addington.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s likely we\u2019ll take one, but only one. I\u2019d have said it would be Ballerini, but the way Zahara went last week, if she does that again we\u2019ve got some serious thinking to do,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a good problem to have with two outstanding young mares who, hopefully, have years of big races ahead of them.<\/p>\n
\u201cApart from NZ, we\u2019ve also got to consider the Group 1 race (Great Square) in Brisbane in December and now Victoria has announced this new $500,000 bonus across the big trotting races here (Victoria) through January and February.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lee, his brother Paddy and mother, Marg, still have 2024 Inter Dominion runner-up Keayang Chucky not far off a racetrack return for the major races, too.<\/p>\n
PHOTOS: HRNZ and Stu McCormick<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Driver Jason Lee admits he still doesn\u2019t know just how good Keayang Zahara is. But he expects to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-200554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/KEAYANG-ZAHARA-039A8396-4-400x267.jpg\")
Driver Jason Lee admits he still doesn\u2019t know just how good Keayang Zahara is.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2026-Victoria-Cup-Leaderboard-Trots.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Jilliby](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Jilliby-Ballerini_20250920-003-400x297.jpg\")
\u00a0<\/p>\n