A RACING superstar in New Zealand, jockey Sam Collett has all the determination to succeed in Queensland you would expect but, for now, she’s focused on getting the basics right.

Collett’s decision to move to Queensland shocked the Kiwi racing industry but it should delight trainers, jockeys and fans over here because of her winning attitude.

The premiership-winning jockey who moved to Queensland last month is well on her way to her goal of riding 1,000 winners with 892 on the board.

That includes three Group 1 among 48 stakes winners.

After riding in Queensland for the Winter Carnival, she decided to make the move more permanent.

“Obviously I’ve been riding for 16 years at home. I’ve achieved pretty much everything I’ve set out to achieve there,” Collett said.

“For me, I’ve got a really big mortgage at home to pay. So when I did my sort of winter working holiday here, I thought if I was going to move over here and give myself the option of making better money, that Queensland might be the best lifestyle.

“I guess I’m here to meet new people, to – I don’t know - improve myself as a rider. You can’t beat travel. I mean, how lucky are we that we can travel with our job?”

Long-term, her goals are the usual ones - premierships, big races. Short term goals, the building blocks to bigger things, are much more fundamental.

“Obviously it’s everything, like, long-term but for now it’s just riding every horse and being as consistent as I can,” she said.

“Like, I need repeat business while I’m here trying to start off.

“So whether horses are winning or not, I want people to say, ‘It may not have won but she’s ridden it well and we want to put her back on’ and if the opportunity arises to ride a better quality horse, they may go, ‘She did a good job on a sub-par horse’.

“That’s the mentality I’m going with at the moment.

“Obviously I want to win as many big races as I can but the small term goal for each week is just consistency.”

Her cousins Jason and Alysha have successfully made the move to the Sydney riding ranks and she has friends in Melbourne but decided Queensland was the better option.

“It’s hard to break in anywhere and I guess because I’d already been here my face was semi-familiar,” she said.

“I assume it would be harder if I was heading to Melbourne and New South Wales.

“Obviously I’ve got cousins that ride in New South Wales and I’ve got a lot of good friends that ride in Melbourne but Melbourne’s like New Zealand weather so I don’t really want to ride there to be honest.

“I want to ride all year round and Queensland offers that opportunity.”

How is she handling the heat? “It’s fine,” she laughed. “It hasn’t affected me yet, put it that way.”

Collett lived on an eight-hectare farm in New Zealand and her living arrangements over here are very different so that was more of a challenge than the weather.

She is living in an apartment at Portside in Brisbane with Ipswich jockey Jake Bayliss and his partner.

“That’s probably what I’ve struggled with the most,” she said.

“Because, with my spare time, I like to be outside doing stuff on the farm, whether it’s in the garden - I’m an avid gardener - or looking after my horses.

“So that is probably the hardest to adjust to. And having not as many race meetings on, so keeping myself mentally fresh. I just want to be outside doing stuff.”

One consolation was Jake took her out to his grandparents’ farm at Ripley and she loved that.

Collett has already put herself on the board at Ipswich with a double last week and one win on Friday, Smokey Diamond in the Wilpak Meats Christmas Party Handicap (1680m).

Smokey Diamond ($7.50) won by half a length from early leader In Agreement ($5.50) with favourite Blazing Mac ($2.20) a length and a quarter further away in third.

“He got a really nice run not too far off the leaders and the leaders to me had quite good form so I was confident they would take me into the race as far as I needed and that’s how it panned out,” she said.

“It doesn’t always pan out like that but in terms of how you want a race to work, that was textbook for me so it worked out great.

“Obviously it’s a really tricky little track to get around. We’re probably lucky at home, we’ve probably got a few that are sort of similar.

“It’s taken a little bit of time to get my bearings a bit. Some horses are easier than others anyway. I’ve been here a couple of times before.”

Anyone watching Collett’s win on Smokey Diamond couldn’t have missed her aggressive riding style.

“Yeah, I guess I’ve got to be competitive,” she said with a laugh.

She follows it, though, with a summation of the attitude that has driven her to success in the saddle.

“I think you have to be competitive to be successful,” she said. “I think if you’re fitter it’s easier to be aggressive because you’ve not running out of steam.

“It’s like anything you do; you want to run a race well. You don’t want to run it half fit then fall into pieces so definitely it helps with my fitness and strength, it goes hand in hand.”