Baillie Rogerson has won herself a head start in the world of horse racing but is too modest to agree that her track record indicates she might be a bit of a sprinter.
The slight Hamilton 10-year-old debuted on the Whangarei racing scene yesterday in the Kids Cart (harness racing with ponies) at the Whangarei Racing Club's first meeting of 2012, coming second in two races before a crowd of 4000.
"What a fun, great spectacle," shouted the commentator as the ponies and their tiny drivers fought for position.
Earlier in the season Baillie won two races at Te Awamutu; two at Pirongia and one at Cambridge; and today she is racing again at Cambridge.
Baillie is aiming to qualify for the New Zealand Cup, which is run on the same day as the New Zealand Trotting Cup event at Addington.
Baillie has burst on the harness-racing scene in the current season but has been preparing for the moment for years.
The granddaughter of Tuhikaramea trainers Graeme and Debbie Rogerson, she part-owns four racehorses through a trust her grandfather set up. One of them, Mr Chez, was favourite in race seven yesterday, but came in third.
Baillie owns two ponies in her own right and has been harness racing for the past year. She was only 8 when she completed the compulsory harness-racing course for aspiring Kid Carters but has had to wait until 10 to be an official contender.
And she has a top coach right in her own home. Her mother, Michelle Northcott, won the 2011 Amateur Jockey Series and is also the only amateur jockey in the country licensed to drive and ride.
Yesterday Baillie raised the bar for herself by choosing to race a larger, more challenging pony than her own Tosca, and had a bit of a tussle when that pony forgot he was supposed to be trotting and broke into a gallop as he neared the finishing line.
Tosca came north with her anyway - a sort of family tradition encouraged by her grandmother to take an extra pony along to lend anyone who needs a pony to compete.
Baillie was second to another talented young harness driver, Taitlyn Hanara, 13, who began harness racing at home in Pukekohe at 6 and has been competing for the past three years, notching up several wins this season. Both girls want to be jockeys - and both are building on family support and a riding environment with unusual determination and focus for their ages.