The 15-year-old King's High School pupil is one of 145 pupils competing in the South Island secondary schools mountain bike championships starting in Dunedin this morning.
Booth, who won the under-16 downhill title a year ago, will compete in the under-17 section this year.
He took up the sport about four years ago, and is looking forward to racing on the bike his parents gave him a couple of weeks ago.
''It's an early birthday present, and probably a Christmas present,'' he said laughing.
''I'm going for the win. It's the only goal, really. I'm fairly confident.''
The year 11 pupil does not play any other sports and spends ''a lot'' of time either riding or cleaning his bike.
He is aiming to clock 2min 55sec in the downhill race tomorrow afternoon, and said he cracked 2min 59sec during a training run earlier in the week.
Mountain Biking Otago president Chris Arbuckle said contestants were coming from as far away as Marlborough, while a big group from Christchurch was also expected.
''Even Fiordland College is on board,'' he said.
''Usually every year McKenzie College [Fairlie] win the schools competition because they have such a big team. But they have got a lot of competition this year.''
Individual medals will be given out in the downhill, cross-country and Big D - a combination of cross-country and downhill - while anyone who enters all three will be eligible for the overall title.
About 50 riders have entered all three events, including cross-country riders Shannon Hope (18), of Bayfield High School, and Paul Wright (17), of Mt Aspiring College.
Both competed at the world championships in Andorra last month and are favourites to win the girls' under-20 and boys' under-20 sections respectively.
Shannon won the under-20 title last year and will now attempt to defend it in her final year at school, while it is the first year Paul has entered the secondary schools event.
Almost 100 pupils have entered this morning's cross-country race at Forester Park, with the majority coming from outside of Otago.
However, more than half of the 82 competitors entered in the downhill at Signal Hill are from Otago.
Organisers have been busy preparing for the event, including spending about 20 hours last week fixing the cross-country track where a slip had occurred.
They also revamped a ''dodgy'' section of the track, Arbuckle said.
