Racing: Youngster tastes group success on first outing

Jim Gibbs was scratching his head a couple of months back.

He knew that in Buddy Lammas he had yet another outstanding prospect for his apprentice factory, but a couple of factors were just not falling into place.

To be fair to the teenage Lammas, he was at a point in his first year when most apprentices were not even up to where he was.

But Gibbs knew Buddy Lammas was better than that.

Gibbs had a video of, among others, leading riders Frankie Dettori and Pat Eddery, and sat Lammas down for a serious video session.

"Watch these and get your weight more forward in the saddle," the developer of more successful apprentices than anyone in New Zealand told his youngest charge.

Buddy Lammas is nothing if not astute. His riding improved dramatically and if you didn't notice that in Convincing's $100,000 Rotorua Cup victory on Saturday, you weren't paying attention.

Jim Gibbs has been one of New Zealand's finest horsemen at producing talented racehorses, an ability almost matched by his astonishing success with training apprentice jockeys.

Buddy Lammas is Gibbs 35th apprentice, a list headed by Michael Coleman, Leith Innes, Matthew Williamson, Reese Jones and Buddy Lammas' older brother Cameron Lammas, who ended his hugely successful apprenticeship riding at Dargaville on Wednesday.

The younger Lammas has an ambition to own a farm and his boss is betting he will achieve his goal. If the guile Buddy Lammas has displayed so far is a guide, he'll certainly get there.

Before Buddy Lammas began riding last year, Gibbs arrived home one evening to find a couple of cattle eating his grass. His apprentice had bought them as an investment and the boss was good to lean on for a couple of days' worth of grazing.

"With an attitude like that, how can you fail?" says Gibbs.

Before signing with Gibbs, Lammas worked part-time in the Levin stockyards as caretaker.

"I was doing a bit of wheeling and dealing and I loved it," said Lammas at the Paeroa races yesterday.

"I was offered the opportunity to become a stock agent, but I reasoned that I could make more money as a jockey as a young person than working as a stock agent.

"When I finish my apprenticeship I want to own some land, work it and be a jockey at the same time."

Lammas' coolness during the exciting moments of his biggest success on Convincing on Saturday was impressive.

With 10 strides to go Kajema looked certain to win for the Roger James stable.

"I looked up, saw Trudy [Thornton] in front of me on Kajema and said: 'I can win this'.

"Before the race I hadn't given myself a show. I thought I'd be lucky to finish in the first five.

"That was my first ride in a group race and the feeling I had afterwards was amazing."

Lammas has a wonderful incentive to succeed looking at his older brother - this week Cameron Lammas bought a house in Matamata with the proceeds of his apprenticeship earnings.

"I want to outride Cameron's winning total [170-plus] as an apprentice."

He is short odds to achieve the goal - he is already on 35 wins in his first year and has a further three years of his apprenticeship to serve.

Convincing is a side interest for her part-owner and trainer Owen Miller, who manages the Bulls base for one of New Zealand's leading horse transporters, Inter-Island Horse Transport.

The 7-year-old mare is the only horse currently being prepared by Miller, who made a prophetic statement as he legged Lammas into the saddle: "This will make you and it will make us".

A first group-rated win and a $100,000 stake Miller was not far off the mark.

Roger James narrowly missed out on the Rotorua Cup, but he was immediately making plans after taking the consolation, the $40,000 Rotorua Stakes with Macavelli Miss.

James will spell her immediately with the $250,000 Couplands Bakeries Mile at Riccarton in November as a goal.