Ecklin South harness racing driver Jason Lee discusses the success of Keayang Zahara.
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00:00I'm joined by Jason Lee, driver of Keyang Zahara. Mate, it's been a whirlwind few months for you, how's it all been?
00:07Yeah, it's been pretty exciting and obviously when you're doing it and involved it's hard to sit back and smell the roses
00:16but now that you have a look back on what we're able to go and do, it was all very cool.
00:22What was it like over in New Zealand? Marg was saying she was treated like a bit of a celebrity over there.
00:28Yeah, definitely. Obviously Marg and the uncles, they definitely enjoyed it. It was a great experience.
00:35Obviously when you're winning it's a hell of a lot better but it's pretty difficult to do, especially in any sport
00:41but especially in harness racing to travel to New Zealand, they'd sort of had the wood over us in racing over the last sort of
00:48since I can remember as a kid growing up anyway and to be able to go over there with a horse and race
00:55but then win some really nice races, it was cool.
00:58And the local community since you've been back has been getting around it?
01:02Yeah, it's been really good. Obviously probably a bit of pressure on her now but she's done more than what we could ever have thought
01:12so hopefully she can come back and keep continuing on but as far as the locals go, the Terrain Trotting Club and everyone involved
01:20but then the wider community, it's sort of been crazy that you just go to the pub or go into the IGA for a quick job
01:28and the amount of people you run into and know about her and know what's going on, it's definitely put some more eyeballs on harness racing
01:37so obviously that's a big tick.
01:40And what's next for her? She goes into the four-year-old and the open class, is that right?
01:44Yeah, obviously it's going to be welcome to the big time now, she's got to compete against your four-year-old open class races
01:54so life's going to definitely get a little bit tougher but she's had a good spell, looks great, hopefully come back a bit stronger
02:02and things aren't going to be easy but I definitely think she's obviously got the potential to be really competitive against the top level
02:10and obviously a freak like Just Believe has just retired so it probably makes things a little bit easier
02:16even though it probably would have been great to have had a few clashes with them for racing
02:21but we're just excited to hopefully get her back in racing and have a bit of fun.