Racing: Hey, she looks like Lance

She looked like Lance O'Sullivan.

That's Lance O'Sullivan at the height of his sparkling career.

Even Lance O'Sullivan didn't look like Lance O'Sullivan in his first raceday ride.

Natasha Collett did in guiding Norville Prince to victory in her first public appearance at the Barmy Army raceday at Ellerslie yesterday.

It was just an amateur appearance, but Tasha, as she prefers to be called, will probably one day step into the professional racing arena.

Meantime the 16-year-old daughter of Pukekohe trainer Richard Collett will complete her education until the end of next year.

She should have been breathless carrying the saddle back to the weigh-in, but had help, both in taking the saddle off and carrying what was nearly half her bodyweight.

Walking at 48kg, Tasha had to load up on 22kg of lead and gear to get her official weight to the 69kg high weight of the amateur event.

Tasha had her first official barrier trials ride two years ago and Richard Collett gave his daughter the option of taking up a professional apprenticeship.

"I was pleased when she said she wanted to complete her education. I'm a firm believer that apprentices are better when given plenty of time to mature mentally."

There is plenty of evidence to support that view - any number of apprentices who have given racing away because of blinding pressure on a 16 or 17-year-old body, have been better riders coming back as 19 and 20-year-olds.

Tasha is self-assured and gives the impression she knows exactly where she is going.

"I'll complete my seventh-form year at Pukekohe High School. I want a back-up in case I don't make it as a jockey.

"I'll almost certainly sign on as an apprentice next year."

Richard Collett is nothing if not astute. On Thursday night he took his daughter by the arm at the Auckland Apprentice School.

"I put her on the mechanical horse. Normally kids turn it up as fast as it can gallop and practice kicking horses out in the finish of a race.

"I slowed it down to something like 37kg an hour, which was like it was in slow motion and said: 'now practice kicking it out because that's how slow you'll be travelling in the home straight tomorrow'."

Collett was not wrong. After three days of rain the course proper at Ellerslie yesterday was as testing as you could imagine.

Tasha Collett did exactly what her father had planned for tactics for Norville Prince. "I was told to go to the front and put the pressure on.

"We'd walked the track before the races and decided that off the fence was the place to be in the back straight and although I was wide, it was the best footing. I just had to keep him rolling in the home straight."

Cambridge trainer Ann Browne said she hoped to produce a couple of minor placings with her 17-horse team.

She did better than that, the stable won the $10,000 Barmy Army Steeples with longshot Jolly Sir and took the next race, the Powerade Hurdles with Wall Game. "I declared before the meeting that Jolly Sir was probably the best of the horses on the day, but I thought the track might have been a shade too heavy for him. It wasn't."