The story behind champion trotting filly Keayang Zahara

She is the filly that has everyone in Down Under harness racing talking.

Keayang Zahara (Volstead) is a generational talent and could even be something more.

The homebred three-year-old trotter stretched her unbeaten record to 12 races when she travelled from Australia to New Zealand to thrash her rivals in the inaugural $NZ500,000 The Ascent (1980m) at Addington in Christchurch last Friday.

Keayang Zahara sat parked and floated away from her rivals to win by eight lengths, with driver Jason Lee barely flinching, except when he flourished his whip to a cheering crowd over the last 50 metres.

KEAYANG ZAHARA REPLAY

It was her sixth Group 1 win, and she had already banked $477,330.

It’s remarkable, given she only had her first start on April 3.

Keayang Zahara will stay in NZ to chase her seventh Group 1 win in the space of just eight months when she tackles the $NZ140,000 NZ Trotting Oaks at Addington on Friday week.

Top Victorian trainer Andy Gath, who was among the excited observers at Addington, said: “She would’ve gone close to winning the feature open class trot today (Group 1 NZ Trotting free-for-all). The times she runs and the way she does it is really freakish.”

“They don’t do what she’s doing.”

Let’s go back to the start with Keayang Zahara.

Yes, she is a homebred, but she’s got some serious bloodlines.

Keayang Zahara is by boom stallion Volstead out of the talented Muscles Yankee mare Keayang Yankee, who raced just 19 times for nine wins. Keayang Yankee’s dam, Dream Interest, is by Dream Vacation.

She was bred by the Lee and Craven clan, a salt-of-the-earth Victorian country family. They are better known for a huge dairy farming operation at Ecklin South, about three hours south-west of Melbourne.

It’s hardly harness racing central.

But the Lee/Craven clan have had some lovely horses, most notably former Chariots Of Fire winning pacer Jilliby Kung Fu, who also ran second in a Miracle Mile. Injuries cut him down in his prime, but he still landed 19 wins and almost $A600,000.

In more recent times, the clan has invested plenty in buying and breeding top quality horses, with a growing percentage being trotters.

In a nutshell, Keayang Zahara is a freak, but she is no fluke. She is the result of a big investment and a concerted strategy.

Marg Lee trains the filly with son, Paddy and another son, Jason, does the driving.

They were all at Addington, along with an army of other extended family members, many of who are part of the broad family ownership in her.

Marg Lee, who prefers to let her sons do the talking, was moved to open up a bit about Keayang Zahara after the romp.

She spoke about the mounting pressure of training an unbeaten horse with the growing hype of Keayang Zahara.

“When I flew over (Melbourne to Christchurch) the night before the race, I watched the movie about Winx (a champion Aussie thoroughbred who won 33 races on end) and how much pressure Chris Waller (her trainer) felt,” Lee said.

“I don’t think it helped. It made me feel even more pressure about our filly and that people just sort of expect her to turn up and win every time now.”

“We never thought it would be easy coming over here, travelling for the first time and racing good New Zealand horses.”

“I was surprised how easy it was, but this filly seems just to keep surprising us.”

“Like a lot of Australians, we’d all watched this great week of racing (NZ Cup Week) and dreamed of being part of it. It’s an incredible thrill to come here and win a big race.”

Paddy Lee was as impressed with how well Keayang Zahara handled the trip as he was with her win last Friday.

“I really expected it to take a fair bit out of her, but she bounced back within a day of arriving and ate better here than she does at home,” he said.

“Once we’d taken her in for a look around Addington in a little hit out six days before the race, we started to get really excited. Jase said she felt terrific.”

“Everything just went so smoothly, so while it was awesome to see her come out and win so well, it probably wasn’t surprising because we felt we had her spot on.”

Jason Lee added: “She’s just something else. I was happy to balance her up early and then move around them to sit parked, stay out of trouble, and take bad luck out of the equation.”

“She was cruising coming off the back (straight) and really did it all herself.”

“That’s the amazing thing about her; she just does it so easily. Everyone says it looks that way, and that’s how it feels, too.”

Beyond Friday week’s NZ Oaks, Paddy Lee said plans are uncertain.

“There’s the Derby here (Addington) a week later, but we’re leaning towards getting her back home and giving her a break,” he said.

“You don’t want to get too greedy. She’s come a long way very quickly and, hopefully, has a big career ahead.”

“We’ve got some thinking to do about what next year looks like, how long we give her out and when we look at the big (open-aged) races with her.”

Australia’s biggest trotting race, the Great Southern Star, will also come soon in early February.”

An option is the $NZ600,000 TAB Trot slot race at Cambridge in April.

“That timing could work, but there’s a chance we also want to give her a really good spell, and it could come up too soon,” Paddy Lee said.

“We’ve been patient so far and didn’t race her as a two-year-old. She could’ve raced but had some growing pains, so we were happy to wait. We knew she had heaps of ability back then.”

With Down Under champ Just Believe turning nine at the end of the year, Keayang Zahara looks every bit his heir apparent.

It would be fantastic to see them clash, and it could happen in a race like the TAB Trot.

Looking further forward, Keayang Zahara has the speed, strength, talent, and gait to chase a race like the iconic Elitloppet in Sweden.

There’s so much to look forward to.

by Adam Hamilton, for Harness Racing Australia