Keystone Del cruises home in his Great Southern Star heat last year.
You don’t have to be a harness racing expert to understand Keystone Del is very, very good.
A quick look at the horse’s last dozen starts – 111111111111 – shows you he’s not afraid of winning.
On Saturday night at Bendigo the Nicole Molander trained seven-year-old will be out to make it 13 wins on the trot in the Group 2 Aldebaran Park Maori Mile.
But over the 1650-metre trip will Australasia’s pinup trotter be forced to work a bit harder for the trophy than in recent times?
Noted short-course specialists in this field include Maori Time, who possesses plenty of gate speed, Cold Sister, also a quick beginner, Elegant Image, who is extremely talented and drawn for a soft run, and smart entire Kyvalley Blur, though he’s drawn the car park in gate seven.
Keystone Del has won 25 of his 42 starts and will line up a short-priced favourite on Saturday night.
He’s won 12 of 14 at the trip range and has hardly needed to raise a sweat in recent runs.
Suffice to say, you cannot tip against him.
Come the Great Southern Star on March 7 it will be a new ballgame for the superstar, however.
Dare say he’ll be a short-priced favourite again that day of course, and he won the GSS heat and final last year. But trotters from across the land will be queueing up to take their shot at glory via the $400,000 series, from Australia and across the ditch.
Spidergirl will be back in action. She’s a three-time Vicbred champion at two, three and four years old. It’s a rare clean-sweep.
Then there’s the Kiwi brigade – Stent, Sheemon, Master Lavros and Jaccka Justy.
We claim Keystone Del as our own now but he was originally from New South Wales, home of another GSS qualifier in Vincennes, who is trained and driven by Keystone Del’s regular reinsman, Blake Fitzpatrick.
Flying Isa is another top New South Welsh trotter who is likely to target the GSS, from the Belinda and Luke McCarthy stable. He’s a dual Group 1 winner.
Throw in other qualifiers in Queenslander Our Overanova, who earned his GSS ticket by winning the DJ Alexander Memorial in October, and Rejuvenation, who took out the South Australian Trotters Cup last Saturday, plus the winners of the Maori Mile, the Australasian Trotting Championships on Hunter Cup night, The Knight Pistol on February 14, the Trotting Grand Prix on February 20, the WA Trot on February 27 and the Glenferrie Farm Challenge on March 1 and you’ll have all sorts of form lines at Tabcorp Park Melton for Australasia’s richest trotting series.
And let’s not forget the two international aspirants, both granted international invitations to contest the Great Southern Star – mare Real Babe (US) and French stallion Used To Me.
Keystone Del is the horse to beat. And if he can go back-to-back in the GSS, the sky’s the limit for this Australasian super trotter.
It would be great to eventually see him given the opportunity to ply his trade and fly our flag in Europe.
For more information on the series, visit the Great Southern Star website.
