Lisa Latta

Lisa Latta is one of New Zealand’s best trainers, finishing 4th on the Premiership table in the 2008/09 season with 62 winners and is on target for a top 6 finish again in 2009/10. She also has a well deserved reputation for producing big race winners and has prepared the winners of Group 1 races such as the New Zealand Oaks and WFA Zabeel Classic. In 2008/09 alone, she had 5 Group and listed winners, the highest tally of any Central Districts trainer.

Lisa started with horses from a very young age, being brought up on her parent’s farm at Balclutha in Otago. By the age of five Lisa had learned to ride her first pony, and from there she began attending pony club and soon after that the shows. Many ribbons were won and Lisa’s affinity with horses saw her spending every minute with them.
She was either hunting, competing in one day events or show jumping.

Lisa was soon attracted to the Rodeo’s as she tagged along with her father to the shows. Having a competitive nature she was soon competing in them and wanting to win. At 14 she became the youngest ever person in New Zealand to be ranked in the top 10 for Barrel racing and at 16 Lisa was a New Zealand Champion Barrel Racer.

Lisa knew she wanted to work with horses and was always helping her father break them in. It was through one of her fathers’ friends that Lisa became associated with successful trainer Malcolm Smith and she moved to New Plymouth to work for him. Over the next 12 years, Lisa followed Malcolm first to Feilding and then Palmerston North, working her way up to stable foreman and then into partnership with him.

Unfortunately a year and a half later, tragedy struck when Malcolm died suddenly. This thrust Lisa into the limelight and she took over as sole trainer with the encouragement of her and Malcolm’s owners. She has thrived since then and now has a well established base at Awapuni and an impressive training record.

Lisa loves training horses and her goals are straight forward. “I want to win more Group One races and would particularly like to win the NZ Derby.”