The Singapore Turf Club has granted a one-day visiting jockey’s licence to Australian jockey Mark Zahra (pictured) to ride at the Kranji Mile meeting on Saturday, 20 May.
The 40-year-old Victorian jockey is booked by trainer Jerome Tan to ride Sacred Croix in the Group 1 Kranji Mile (1600m).
Zahra, who hails from Perth and made his riding debut in Western Australia in 1998, has chalked up more than 1,300 winners in 25 years of riding, including 27 Group 1 winners to-date. His latest Group 1 wins include the Vinery Stud Stakes atop Prowess for trainers Roger James and Robert Wellwood two months ago, as well as pairing up with the Ricardo Le Grange-trained Hongkong Great to victory in the Group 1 Singapore Gold Cup (2000m) in November last year at his last visit to Singapore.
Other notable achievements of his include the Melbourne Cup with Gold Trip, the Makybe Diva Stakes with I’m Thunderstruck and the Blue Diamond Stakes atop Daumier last year, as well as the Caulfield Cup with Verry Elleegant in 2020 and the TJ Smith Stakes with Santa Ana Lane in 2019.
His first Group 1 victory, however, came aboard the John Meagher-trained Mayo’s Music in the Raffles Cup in 2004 in Singapore, whom he also partnered to claim the Group 3 Chairman’s Trophy a year later.
During his time as a visiting rider in Singapore from 2004 to 2006, he rode 23 winners, before adding two more wins to his local tally at his two hit-and-run missions last year. In 2018, Zahra also helped Team Australia claim the Premier Gateway International Jockeys Challenge at his one-day visit to Kranji.
Licensed by Racing Victoria, Zahra currently sits in 9th position on 27 winners on the Victorian Metropolitan jockeys’ premiership this season. Besides Australia and Singapore, he has also ridden in Hong Kong, India, Japan, Macau, Mauritius, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
He goes to scale at 57kgs.
