Watching the Winx movie on the plane from Melbourne to Christchurch may not have been Marg Lee’s best decision.

Already feeling the weight of expectation with unbeaten Keayang Zahara, Lee watched with a growing understanding as Chris Waller talked of the pressure he felt as Winx’s winning streak grew and grew.

“I know we’ve got a long way to go to get anywhere near Winx’s 33 wins in a row, but every win is as much relief as excitement as the streak grows,” the media shy Lee said.

“It was remarkable to see how much someone like Chris (Waller) felt the pressure. It made me feel the pressure with our girl even more.”

Keayang Zahara, who only started racing in April, left Australia with 11 wins from as many starts, five of them at Group 1 level.

She added sixth Group 1 in the most mesmerizing of style at her first NZ start in last Friday’s inaugural $NZ500,000 The Ascent.

Keayang Zahara will stick around and chase win number 13 and a seventh Group 1 victory in the $NZ140,000 NZ Trotting Oaks at Addington on November 29.

But the Marg Lee, her boys Jason and Paddy, and the broader Lee/Craven clan will savour last Friday for quite some time.

“It’s exciting, yes, very exciting, but it’s also a relief,” Marg said.

“So many of us have watched this big week, wanted to come and thought about being part of it. Now we have and with the horse we’ve all been dreaming of getting.”

Jason Lee added: “She’s something special. These are the moments you dream of having when you first get into the game.”

While the Kiwis are proud, they also appreciate greatness and the crowd stood as cheered as one when Keayang Zahara roared clear to win by eight lengths with Lee letting her cruise to the line as he waved his whip to the crowd.

It capped a remarkable week for Australians at Addington.

And for a harness racing lover, it felt like the good old days.

The crowd was big, the racing electric and the Trans-Tasman rivalry at boiling point.

As great as Cup Week has been through history, the pandemic hit it … very hard. Crowds have been down and the NZ (thoroughbred) Cup meeting on the following Saturday has started to trump it as NZ’s biggest race day of any code.

But was the year the two harness racing days of NZ Cup Week needed.

And the Aussies, especially the Victorians, played such a massively important part in it.

When Leap To Fame succumbed to a health setback and was scratched from the NZ Cup, champion Victorian trotter Just Believe became THE headline act of the week.

Then Keayang Zahara came and did her thing.

Sure, the $1mill NZ Cup is the mega race of the week, but moving NZ’s biggest trotting race, the $400,000 Group 1 Dominion Trot, forward from Friday to Cup Day was an inspired move.

NZ betting turnover on the Dominion Trot was up 40 per cent year-on-year.

It was a key pillar to the entire Cup Day turnover, which was the second highest for race day in NZ history – thoroughbred or harness.

An Aussie, pause and think about that. It’s remarkable and shows just how much bigger and how much more status harness racing commands in NZ compared to Australia.

What last Tuesday also drove home was the importance of the Trans-Tasman rivalry. Not having the Aussies competing for a couple of years post the pandemic really hurt NZ and robbed the race of lots of Aussie eyeballs.

All that’s history now.

The Aussies are back and in force. The Kiwis will say they don’t like it, but deep down they know they need it.

It’s somewhat ironic a few key Kiwi horsemen were bristling after Just Believe and Swayzee won the two majors on Cup Day.

They may have conveniently forgotten the decades of crossing the ditch with their horses to pillage Aussie majors like the Hunter Cup, Miracle Mile, Victoria Cup, Derbys and Breeders Crown finals.

Sure, Australian harness racing has its challenges and lots of them, but the quality of horses isn’t one of them.

The tide has turned. Gone are the days where the best Kiwis, at least in general, were simply better than us.

The Aussie breed has improved so much and so too have out trainers. There’s no doubt we’ve got better depth in driving ranks, as well.

It was an epic week for harness racing in this part of the world.