Page 149 - Speedhorse October 2018

“No doubt about it,” he said with a smile. “Winning the All American Futurity has been my greatest thrill.”
A few days after that benchmark victory, the Ruidoso meeting came to a close, and Casey resettled at the New Mexico State Fair, the main stalking grounds for his pop. (Cliff has been the leading trainer there for six out of the last seven years.)
“I had a real good meet,” Casey says in track lingo, which implies the best possible success. He won 21 races in the three-week stretch and picked up the jockey championship – a notable feat in view of the fact his career was about a month old. “I rode for everybody, but mostly my dad,” he says.
When the curtain dropped on that State Fair meet of 1981, Casey headed for Santa Anita
on the West Coast. Once again, success came quickly. “In my second ride out there, I was on Home Last, a longshot in an allowance race,” he goes on. “She won by 3/4-length and paid $140.”
Shortly afterward, he came down with mononucleosis, which led to hepatitis. “I wasn’t eating right, I wasn’t sleeping right, and I was fatigued,” he explains. The result: a two- month recuperation.
At the start of 1982, he got back to light duty, galloping horses at Sunland Park. He
rode for a while at Sunland, the transferred to Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas. (He
also transferred from Coronado High to Hot Springs High School.) With Paul Young as his agent (Young also handles the nationally-known John Lively), Casey did fairly well at Hot Springs. He won 18 raes, including the $25,000 added Dixieland Handicap aboard Cruzen Dude.
His summer exploits included a conquest of the rich Land Of Enchantment Futurity at La Mesa Park aboard Running Bucket. In the 1982 State Fair meeting, Casey finished on top once again, but it took four wins on closing day to slip ahead of O.A. Martinez. For the second straight year, he wound up with 21 wins at the State Fair.
Included among the high-powered horses Casey has ridden is Bold Ego, a winner of $500,000. Casey was up last summer when Bold Ego set the
5 1/2-furlong record at Ruidoso. “He doesn’t quit,” Casey says of the colt. “He’s got all that speed, and he can carry it a lot farther than most horses. I rode him five times and it was always a thrill.”
Casey is also the regular pilot for Copper Case, the handicap champ at Santa Fe last
summer. “I also won the State Fair Handicap with him at 127 pounds,” he says. Casey and Copper Case recently won an allowance race at Sunland Park.
Casey has been quite a success, but not so much that he doesn’t know good advice when he hears it. These riding pointers come from Papa Cliff. “I usually listen because he’s usually right,” Casey says.
Note: Clifford Lambert was inducted into
the Ruidoso Hall of Fame in 2014, and Casey Lambert was inducted in 2016. The pair became the first father-son duo to achieve this honor. Clifford sits on the all-time leading Quarter Horse trainer list with $1.5 million in earnings. He is also a conditioner of Thoroughbreds, including Bold Ego who went on to finish second in the Preakness Stakes. Casey is an all-time leading Quarter Horse jockey with $5.3 million in earners, and is also a rider of Thoroughbreds with over 2,700 win and nearly $35 million in earners. Casey has now also become a trainer, like his father, with nearly $1 million in Quarter Horse and Thoroughbred earners.
Casey Lambert with his sister Cheyenne (in Halloween costume) and his mother and father, Mrs. and Mr. Cliffort Lambert, after winning the Mount Cristo Rey Handicap at Sunland Park with Double B Express on Oct. 31, 1982. Clifford was the trainer.
SPEEDHORSE, October 2018 147
LOOKING BACK - AN EXCERPT FROM MARCH 1983 ISSUE
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