Racing is in their blood
Raceday punters should know there’s more to being a clerk of the course than wearing a red coat and riding a fetching grey horse. Just ask the Lammas family, who cover all Central Districts race meetings.
One day, father Robbie Lammas was at an Awapuni, Palmerston North, meeting when a jockey was dangerously dragged and Robbie had to gallop in and stop the horse.
That’s why the clerks must watch each race closely, lead jumpy horses and catch any that have bolted, and that can be dangerous work.
They’re usually the first to arrive and help the vets if a horse is injured, an unpalatable part of the job.
Robbie, at 67, has had rugged times on horseback, and has been a clerk of the course for nigh on 45 years. His wife Rosie was the first amateur female jockey in the 1970s, when women were known as ‘‘powder-puff jockeys’’, who weren’t allowed to race against the boys.
She has had more than 30 years as a clerk of the course, while daughter Melissa started as a 12-year-old at the Bayer Classic in Levin on a day when she scared off the jockeys because her pony was a little crazy. She is also the red-coat at the Manawatu¯ Harness Racing Club on her little standardbred, Midnight Hour.
Her brothers Buddy and Cameron are active jockeys who have pitched in with the red coat when needed. Buddy, 31, has had 480 career wins and leads the New Zealand jumps premiership, and operates out of Waikato.
Rotorua-based Cameron, 34, has had 730 career wins and is 10th in the jockeys’ premiership on the flat.
Despite the inherited equine genes, Robbie didn’t want his boys to follow him, preferring them to take up a trade. ‘‘It’s a tough life’’.
Melissa, 37, featured worldwide on You Tube six months ago at Awapuni when jockey Aaron Kuru’s horse Des De Jeu fell at the first fence. Kuru somehow leapt back on, Melissa stationed at the 150-metre mark gave him the thumbs up to continue and, amazingly, he went on to win.
‘‘I still to this day cannot believe what I saw,’’ she said.
She had five seasons as a jumps jockey until 2003-04 and two serious falls. One at Palmerston North, requiring nine nights in hospital, persuaded her to take life easier. In her first fall, the medic panicked because she couldn’t breathe, then they discovered her mouth was clogged with mud.
The Lammas brood simply grew into the work, as in ‘‘we all got roped into it’’. But when Robbie was a puny youngster in Blenheim, his father hated horses, although his mother didn’t, and Robbie had to ride everyone else’s horses at a nearby racing stables.
He won a big steeplechase race at Marton in 1971, but his career was notable for countless second placings.
He broke his neck in a fall, although he somehow got up to ride the next race. When medically ruled out after that, he took up hunting, until one day Manawatu¯ Hunt Club huntsman Bill Ash couldn’t do the clerk-of-the-course job at Levin.
Ash sent Robbie a red coat and he did such a good job Ash said he could have it and since then the family has worked at Trentham, O¯ taki, Awapuni, Whanganui, Woodville and Tauherenikau. There can be three meetings a week, but usually there’s just one, so it’s part-time and the pay, well, it’s modest. All of them have other jobs.
Robbie has a farmlet at Manakau, south of Levin, and he must provide the horses, feed them, ride them each day to be as fit as any racehorse and transport them. It’s expensive.
An official once crudely told him people were lining up at the gates to do his job. These days Robbie has health-and-safety rigmarole to contend with so he called his bluff and he’s still waiting.
‘‘You can’t ring up a racing club and say you can’t come. No clerk of the course, no race meeting.’’
In 2013, Robbie had to dash up the straight to catch Wellington Cup winner Blood Brotha with Lisa Allpress aboard. The horse did another lap of the track, 1800 metres, and simply wouldn’t stop.
Another time during a race, a new clerk of the course was bucked off his fractious horse and it sped off towards the oncoming horses. Robbie averted disaster by chasing the rogue horse and pushing it to the outside of the track, but the newbie was sacked.
Racing pundits describe Robbie’s most famous moment as a rider was in the Wellington Steeplechase in the 1970s when heading for a certain win on a rank outsider, with daylight second. A new fence had been put in 50m from the finish and Robbie’s horse fell jumping it – that fence was never used again.
He’s happier now organising the horses in numerical order in the birdcage, delivering the field to the starting gates, leading the winners back and coping with the unknown in between.
‘‘You can’t ring upa racing club and say you can’t come. No clerk of the course, no race meeting.’’ Robbie Lammas