What started as a holiday has become the continuation of a racing career for Casey Waddell.
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After crossing the ditch for a break from racing in her native New Zealand, Waddell landed a gig trackwork riding for Chris Waller which kept her in Australia.
That reignited her passion for racing and she concentrated on restarting her apprenticeship.
Next came an opportunity that brought her to Tamworth.
"Cody [Morgan] reached out to me and asked if I'd like to come out to the country and try and ride out my country claim," Waddell said.
"I thought it was a good opportunity, I asked Chris and he thought the same thing and now I'm on loan to Cody."
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The move to Australia came about 18 months ago and then Waddell came to Tamworth about four months back.
The 23-year-old has slowly been picking up more and more rides as she gets her name out there.
"Now I'm consistently riding every week with a decent amount of rides," she said.
"It's helping a lot because the more rides you get the more you improve, the more you learn."
Waddell, who's scored eight wins and 28 placings in the last 12 months, will have a full book of rides on Boxing Day at Quirindi including the Stirling Osland-trained Disenchanted in the Murrurundi Cup.
Quirindi is one of the shorter trips for Waddell who has been travelling all over in search of rides.
The amount of travel is one of the biggest differences between racing in New Zealand and Australia, Waddell said, but it suits the three-kilogram-claiming apprentice just fine.
"I don't mind doing it because I love it," Waddell, who caught the travel bug after visiting the US a few years ago, said.
While Waddell loves seeing new places, she does miss home.
The COVID-19 pandemic has meant Waddell hasn't been able to visit her hometown of Levin.
She's instead thrown herself deeper into her work.
"I haven't been back [to New Zealand] since February last year and that was only for a week," Waddell, who hoped to be able to visit home in March, said.
"It's very hard. I'm very close with my family but, I think, with this job and career - I've got such a drive and that's all I'm solely focused on at the moment."
While she's in the thick of the horse racing world now, Waddell's first sporting passion was hockey.
She represented New Zealand at the youth Olympics in her teenage years.
However, a career in hockey wasn't sustainable for Waddell which sent her down her current path.
"My goal as a kid was always to go to the Olympics and I went to the Youth Olympics in China in 2014," she said.
"I just loved it [hockey] but there was no money in it and no incentive to stay in it.
"I want to build a life and a career.
"I can get a career in this [racing] and make good money out of it so I pushed everything into racing."
Waddell isn't exactly sure where her career will take her but would love to race on the big stage in Australia at the likes of Royal Randwick.
However, she does think she'll finish up where her career started.
"I do see myself heading back to New Zealand later in life but the money's good over here and I'm really enjoying it," Waddell said.
She added: "I have a good place to stay and I'm really enjoying the stable life here and there's a good team here."