YVETTE EYES CITY SUCCESS
Metro win ’box to tick’
YOUNG apprentice Yvette Lewis is chasing her first Saturday city winner and she will have retired Group 1winning superstar jockey Corey Brown to thank.
Lewis is apprenticed to trainer Adam Campton on the Gold Coast and will be chasing city success at Eagle Farm when she rides ex-hong Kong galloper Charge On.
The bright lights of the big smoke are a long way from Tingha, a tiny NSW bush town of less than 1000 residents where Lewis grew up on a property. The daughter of former country hoop and trainer Virginia Heron started her riding career in Tamworth and then transferred to riding in Ballina.
Based on the Gold Coast for the last six months, she has now accumulated more than 100 career winners.
It was a phone conversation with Brown, who was working as a NSW jockey coach and mentor, which saw her move to the Gold Coast.
Brown once rode for Campton’s father Neil who was also once a top jockey and Golden Slipper winner before turning his hand to training.
“Corey is an apprentice mentor and I had outridden my country claim in northern NSW and it was hard to get a start in the provincials,” Lewis said. “I phoned Corey and I said I wasn’t really getting much of a go.
“I asked him if there was anywhere I could go to use a bit of my provincial claim. He came back to me and suggested Adam Campton.
“I’ve been on the Gold Coast a little over six months and my first winners up here were a double (in September on the Gold Coast).
“Scoring a Saturday metro winner is a box I would now like to tick.”
Lewis, 22, has already come a long way from her days growing in the bush. “There’s not much in Tingha,” she said.
Charge On is rated an $8 chance with TAB in the BM72 Handicap (1300m), with Lewis to use her 3kg city claim.