Lifetime career and Lee is loving it!

Country NSW trainer Steven Lee has spent nearly all of his life in harness racing—and it would be a safe bet to say that he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I’m now 67 and I started out when I was just 15. I haven’t really done anything else. Horses have been my life,” Lee said.

“I got a pretty good start because I was with Charlie Parsons at Bankstown at the beginning. Charlie was an outstanding horseman.”

Lee and his wife Suzan have a property at Laggan, near Crookwell, in the State’s Southern Tablelands region.

“We are a bit over 100 kilometres from Canberra where our racehorses are based at the training centre. Our driver is our grandson James ‘Jimmy’ Locke and he is there with them. I drive over each day and we work them together,” Lee said.

“It’s close to a one-and-a-half-hour trip each way for me, but the training centre is just perfect because everything is there.”

And the Lee/Locke team kicked off the new 2023 season in the best possible way when five-year-old black gelding Here Comes Bobby (Western Terror) took out one of the features at Leeton last Sunday night (Jan 1), the $14,994 Milbrae Quarries Final.

“It certainly was the perfect start.  Last season was very good, but this one has started even better. We got over $5000 for winning a qualifying heat, and then picked up nearly $8000 by taking out the final,” Lee said.

“It’s a four-hour trip to Leeton, but we’ve had a bit of luck there. Sometimes you’ve got to be prepared to travel and it’s nice when it all works out. Jimmy is driving well at the moment.”

Here Comes Bobby, raced by Suzan, had been at the top of his game leading up to the series, winning two races impressively at Canberra before coming from a long way back to get the money at Goulburn.

“I think he’s just improving with racing and starting to learn what it’s all about. We aren’t doing anything different with his training. He can still do a few things wrong, but he’s definitely starting to put it all together,” Lee said.

“We’ve now sent ‘Bobby’ to the paddock for a three week freshen up. There are some nice regional races coming up later on, so we’ll aim him at those.”

The couple shifted to Laggan about 20 years ago.

“We were at Menangle Park before that. I used to do horse breaking, anywhere from 60 horses, up to 100 a season,” he said.

“Now we’ve got 14 in work, but we also have eight foals on the ground so it’s pretty busy. We usually get 10 or 12 in foal each year and Suzan takes care of the broodmares and foals at home at the farm.”

The Yenda Producers Leeton Pacers Cup saw David Kennedy and driver Jackson Painting successful with Romanee (Bettors Delight). The pacer, sent out a warm favorite, was given an easy time early by Painting, but things cranked up later with a final half of 55.2 secs.

Talented trainer-driver Ellen Bartley took out the Kriden Park Invitational Ladies Race with the Trevor White-prepared Gracie Taltoa (Caribbean Blaster).

by Terry Gange, for Harnesslink