damn catcher chocobo arggghhh!!!

okay im am trying to get tidus sigil by winning the chocobo race in the calm lands and i just cannot do it the best i have so far is 18.7 secs, it would help if the woman did not get all the balloons on the begining ramp not just on her side but i mean always gets them she pushes me out of the way and nabs them and she seems to be going much faster than me i can see myself taking longer to do this than the bloomin lightining strikes for lulu! and i thought that was hard! any tips??????
p.s. what is gameshark is it something you buy as in an actual piece of equipment and plug into your playstation or what??? i know nothing about it.

Had the same problem myself but since i live in the uk where it rains everyday i ended up spending a whole day getting the weapons on ffx so when ur racing the catcher never follow here always take a seprate route and when ur in the open plain after the sharp right corner keep away from the catcher a little to the right the birds well always fly into her plus when ur racing hold i n L1 L2 R1 R2 get better chocobo ctrl so the race start go leftish ignore firt ballon as doomsday said then right of the catcher in the open plain but no tht far as u wont get any ballons andnear the end go cliff side i found tht the best way :)