New Zealand's superstar mare Probabeel has created chaos in the market for the A$5 million Cox Plate with a giant-killer win over Zaaki in the Might And Power Stakes at Caulfield in Melbourne yesterday.
She capped a dream day for trainer Jamie Richards, Australian rider Brett Prebble and owners Brendan and Jo Lindsay, who had earlier won the A$175,000 Weekend Hustler Stakes with Kahma Lass to add to the pair's huge broodmare value.
But the Probabeel victory stunned punters Australasia-wide, even though she was second favourite, because while she was clawing her way to a nose win over Nonconformist, the enormously-hyped Zaaki was a struggling third.
The latter had been so dominant over the winter and early spring, the Australian TAB had already paid out on Zaaki to win the Cox Plate, but that cloak of invincibility was shredded by the Kiwi mare yesterday.
Probabeel was ridden with cover on the inside by Prebble and hit her usual flat spot at the 600m when the tempo went into the race, but regathered herself and sprinted sharply up the rail, a part of the race track she has rarely seen in her career before.