Zeus back on home soil after NZ campaign

Bolinda harness racing trainer Brent Lilley will again bypass the prestigious Inter Dominion series with Aldebaran Zeus (Muscle Hill) as he looks towards next year’s Great Southern Star as the main long-range target for the horse.

The star trotter is now back in Victoria following a five-start New Zealand campaign which ended with a sixth placing in the Group 1 Rowe Cup at Alexandra Park on May 26.

Aldebaran Zeus won his first appearance abroad in the Group 2 Waikato Flying Mile, but was unable to do better than fifth in his next four runs across the Tasman.

Lilley said the five-year-old was now spelling before some feature races in his home state later this season.

“He’s having a spell and he’ll have three or four weeks out, maybe a little longer,” Lilley said.

“We’ll see how he’s doing, but he’s piling the weight on.

“The trip started off good at Cambridge when he won there, and then he never had a great deal of luck after that.

“He struggled a bit around that last bend at Alexandra Park. He just sort of lost ground on that bend every start, but always got up the straight good.

“If he had managed to get on the fence in one of those races rather than having to try come wide, he probably would have gone a lot better in some of them.”

Lilley is pleased he made the trip to New Zealand with Aldebaran Zeus, despite only securing the one victory.

“He hadn’t done much travelling, other than Menangle when he won up there (March 4). That’s the only trip he’d ever been on,” Lilley said.

“So it might have turned him into a man now.”

Lilley said he wouldn’t be setting Aldebaran Zeus, the reigning Victorian 4YO Trotting Entire/Gelding of the Year, for the Inter Dominion series in Queensland.

“He won’t go to Queensland,” he said.

“We’ll hang around here and then there’s the Great Southern Star over the short trip in February.”

Aldebaran Zeus is a multiple Group 1 winner with more than $400,000 in prizemoney from his 48 career starts.

The horse missed last year’s Inter Dominion series and finished fifth in the 2023 Great Southern Star Final behind Just Believe.

It is likely star mare Queen Elida will represent Lilley in the Inter Dom as she looks to better her third placing in last year’s final at Melton.

by Tim O’Connor, for Harness Racing Victoria