Matthew Cameron rides Madison County to victory in the Levin Classic at Trentham in January. Photo / Race Images
Leading hoop Matthew Cameron will finish the season as the highest earning jockey in New Zealand this term, and he put the cherry on his season with victory aboard Mac Attacka at Ruakaka on Saturday.
His win aboard the Chris Gibbs and Michelle Bradley-trained gelding took his prizemoney for the season over the $3 million mark, the first time he has achieved that feat in his 18 years in the saddle.
"It was a good milestone and I didn't realise until the following day that I had reached it," Cameron said. "It was great to look at the stats and see the $3 million come up."
Currently sitting on 92 wins he is well short of his best season of 155 victories in 2014/15, however, an emphasis on quality over quantity resulted in 15 stakes victories this season, three more than his previous best.
"In the long-term you have to think about the money and that's why I think a lot of us top jockeys go for these big races," Cameron said.
"I've had not as many winners as I can normally get over the season, but it's the big ones that we want to win and when you get to a certain point you really just aim for those Group Ones and as many stakes races as you can get."
While he has had many highlights this term he has singled out Madison County as his horse of the season.
The Murray Baker and Andrew Forsman-trained gelding won three stakes races with Cameron aboard, including the Gr.1 2000 Guineas and Gr.1 Levin Classic (1600m).
"This season it has been Madison County. I got a couple of Group Ones on him and a Group Two," he said.
"He was the main horse and he went to Australia and he's proven over there that he is one of the best horses going around in three-year-old company."
Cameron said he owes a lot of his success to the support of Baker and Forsman and their Cambridge team.
"Murray Baker and Andrew Forsman have been great to me and they have supported me for the last three or four years.
"The team at home in Cambridge, they are behind the scenes and they do a lot of work. I turn up and do my job for a few minutes and get the glory. But it's been a great season and I can't thank that team enough."
While reflecting on a standout season, Cameron already has his sights set on the new season and he is excited about a couple of three-year-old prospects out of the Baker-Forsman barn
"I have ridden a few nice two-year-olds that are going to turn into really nice three-year-olds," he said.
"A So You Think colt, Quick Thinker, I won the stakes race at Ellerslie (Listed Champagne Stakes, 1600m) on him.
"I galloped him the other day at the track and he is coming up super. He is going to be a nice Guineas and Derby horse, I think he is the biggest one at the moment.
"There are a couple of Mongolian [Inner Mongolia Rider Horse Industry-owned] horses there that have gone well as two-year-olds.
"Holy Mongolemperor, he is a beautiful, big horse, and he is going to make a lovely three-year-old as well."
Cameron Lammas is in the final stages of his most successful season as a jockey, but it could have been even better.
The Rotorua-based horseman, who travels regularly to Matamata to ride trackwork, has earned $1,564,808 in prizemoney and is currently sitting fifth on the New Zealand Jockeys' Premiership, the highest position he has held since his career began in 2001-02.
It's the most stakemoney the 35-year-old has earned in a season, slightly eclipsing last season's tally, and his 68 wins includes six Group or Listed wins (the same as last season).
His personal record of wins in a season is 77, achieved in his first full term as a fully-fledged jockey in 2005-06 after completing his apprenticeship with Jim Gibbs, and he still has half a dozen race meetings to reach or better that figure.
"At this time of year you never know if you're going to go out and ride two or three in a day or nothing," Lammas said. "Even if I don't get many more winners this season, it's still been a good one for me. But I still can't get another Group One win."
Lammas notched his first and only Group One success on Calveen in the 2005 Easter Handicap (1600m) at Ellerslie and he briefly thought his drought had finally been broken aboard Princess Kereru in the Gr.1 Sistema Railway (1200m) at Ellerslie on New Year's Day when she dashed through along the inner, only to be beaten a neck by outsider Santa Monica.
"If she [Santa Monica] had come up beside me we'd have beaten her. Princess Kereru got a bit lost in front on her own and she's a fighter.
''All I really want to do is win another Group One. I've lost count of the seconds and thirds I've had in them. I remember running second in the Auckland Cup (2016) on Rose Of Virginia for Lance Noble. It was Lance's last day as a public trainer and I would have loved to have won a Group One race for him, but we got beaten and it was by an outsider again (El Soldado)."
He guided Kerry O'Reilly into fourth in the Gr.3 Geelong Cup (2400m) and, though only 11th in the 2006 Gr.1 Melbourne Cup (3200m), it was an experience he will never forget.
Lammas will continue his association with Te Toro Pearl in the Listed Powerworx Opunake Cup (1400m) at New Plymouth on Saturday.
"Maybe Princess Kereru can give me a Group One [next season]. She deserves it. And Shoshone is quite a smart filly."
"With my son Blake now 2 and a half and my second child on the way in November I'll have to pull my finger out and make more money."
- NZ Racing Desk