Jake Bayliss always dreamed of getting a license to ride in Singapore and he was absolutely over the moon when he got that call up at the start of the year.
Bayliss was already a Group 1 winning rider before making the move from Australia to Singapore, but his Group 2 win on Golden Monkey, his first Group win in Singapore, still stacks up as a very important milestone in the young rider’s career.
The race was the $150,000 Group 2 Singapore Three-Year-Old Classic, contested over 1400m, and, with Golden Monkey’s regular jockey Oscar Chavez suspended, Bayliss was handed the reins of the very promising chestnut gelding by trainer Tim Fitzsimmons … and Bayliss repaid that vote of confidence with a faultless ride.
It looked so easy from the grandstand … Golden Monkey was the favourite and was expected to win … but a winning path still had to be safely negotiated and Bayliss admitted in a post-race interview (as reported on the Singapore Turb Club website) to feeling as much relief as ecstasy.
“I’d be lying if I say I didn’t play this race a hundred times in my head since declarations,” said Bayliss.
“So, I just weighed up my options from the nice draw and didn’t try to overthink it. I had the horse underneath me and his work had been too good, and the runs were going to come.
“I was in two minds at the corner, as the stablemate … Gold Ten Sixty-One … was off the bridle, so I thought he might not take me into the race, but he took me far enough and once I saw Silent Is Gold drop the bit, that was when I pushed the button, gave him a shove out of the way and gee, that’s a nice turn of foot.
“Very privileged to get my first Group win in Singapore.”
Bayliss has now ridden eleven winners from one hundred and eleven rides in Singapore which, after a late start to the season, currently has his ninth spot of the Singapore Jockey’s Premiership ladder, which is just three winners off fifth place.
Ronnie Stewart, who left Brisbane around the same time as Bayliss to return to Singapore, where he has previously found a good level of success, sits just one place ahead of Bayliss on the Premiership ladder with thirteen winners from one hundred and seven rides.
