KEY POINTS:
You might have thought Samantha Collett would have cut her cousin Tasha Collett some slack at Rotorua on Wednesday.
After all, Samantha had won at Matamata on her first raceday ride three weeks earlier.
Surely she could lend a bit of assistance to help her cousin achieve the
same.
But horse racing doesn't work that way.
And, anyway, Tasha Collett didn't need help. She booted home Towzee, co-trained by her father Richard, to beat Zergar and Samantha Collett by just half a head in the $10,000 Sudimahotels Sprint and become a winner with her first ride as a professional jockey.
It actually wasn't the first time Tasha had found the winning post first - a year ago she scored a totalisator win at Ellerslie, but it was as an amateur jockey in an amateur riders' race.
At that point Tasha - she much prefers that to Natasha - was fairly sure she wouldn't progress through to become a jockey.
She preferred to finish her schooling and head into a career in communications and journalism.
"I think what finally swayed me towards racing was that I received a university scholarship and I had to make a decision on that.
"It was actually having to make that decision that made me sway towards becoming a jockey."
The greatly experienced background compared to most novice apprentices showed in what was a clever ride to get Towzee home.
And another leg-up was knowing Towzee through having ridden him in work and in two barrier trials.
"He's got a couple of tricks to him, but I was well aware of them."
That inside knowledge allowed the teenager the luxury of giving Towzee plenty of time to settle at the back of the field.
"I knew there would be plenty of pace in the race and it gave you confidence to get back off them."
Towzee poked through a gap one width off the rail in the home straight and just held on to win.
With millions of dollars going through the tote every day, racing is by necessity a fiercely competitive industry and Samantha, as you'd expect, did everything to try to beat her cousin.
It was a rapidly diminishing winning margin on the line.
"Right on the line Sam said, 'I tried real hard, but I couldn't get you'."
Tasha gets an opportunity to ride another winner today with mounts in the first two races at Ellerslie.
Her ride in the first, Arose, should appreciate the No 1 barrier draw and Prized Touch in race two is another trained by her father Richard with Shane Hapeta. Prized Touch has not raced since June, but has won previously when fresh.
