Sport
5 February, 2026
Two stay race for cup bonus
To collect the trotter’s bonus of $500,000, the Western District-trained Keayang Zahara must win the Great Southern Star at Melton on February 14, which would give her the required four wins.
AFTER Saturday night’s Cranbourne Cup meeting there are still only two horses eligible for the Harness Racing Victoria insured bonuses on offer over the Summer Cup carnival.
The winner of the Pacing Cup, Leap To Fame, must win both this weekend’s Kilmore Cup and then the Hunter Cup the following week to secure the $1 million bonus awarded to any horse that can win four of the six major cups including the Hunter Cup.
To collect the trotter’s bonus of $500,000, the Western District-trained Keayang Zahara must win the Great Southern Star at Melton on February 14, which would give her the required four wins.
While the two-horse battle in the Pacers Cup between Leap To Fame and Kingman revived memories of the epic contests of the 1980s between Popular Alm and Gammalite, it is the achievements of the five-year-old Vicbred mare Keayang Zahara that stamp her as one of Australia’s greatest trotters.
From only 24 career starts, the daughter of Volstead USA has been beaten just once—a second placing in a 1:51.7 mile at Menangle in May 2025—and 12 of her wins have been in Group 1 races. Her Cranbourne victory pushed her prizemoney to $1,010,535, making her the second-highest Australian-bred trotting stake-earner behind Just Believe.
Bendigo driver Jack Laugher teamed with the John Tormey stable to win with Shaq at last week’s Maryborough meeting.
Owned by Kevin Clark, the nine-year-old was having his 222nd start and now boasts 26 wins and 64 placings, proving far too good on Wednesday with a 5.8m win in 1:56.3.
This week Maryborough again hosts a Wednesday afternoon program while Bendigo has gained valuable Friday night spots on the calendar.
At the end of the month Boort will stage its Cups meeting along with the time-honoured Central Victorian Championships.
And on the second Sunday in March, Labor Day weekend, the inaugural Running of the Bulls—a $125,000 slot race—will be held. To put that into perspective, total prizemoney for the 2025 meeting was $59,000.
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