Applause for Apprentice

The Singapore Turf Club reports on the first raceday win for Te Akau Singapore apprentice Hassan Amin on Friday evening:

Mature apprentice jockey Amin Hassan has been keeping tabs on his rides. Without skipping a beat at the post-race interview, he instantly knew that first win he had long pined for was finally recorded on Friday night at his 40th ride.

The former airbrush worker is one among those many lesser-known apprentice jockeys who have somehow slipped under the radar, through no lack of trying, but who day in day out, are out there doing the hard yards behind the scenes every morning and seizing every opportunity they can get on racedays to hone their craft as jockeys.

Thirty nine such rides have gone by rather anonymously, though Amin did record two seconds (including one aboard Rocket Man's half-brother My Brother in 2013) in his time as apprentice jockey to Patrick Shaw and Mark Walker, but it's taken Walker's Fiscal Wings to finally step up in Friday's penultimate event and let Amin lap up the euphoria of a win for the first time.

At 30, Amin may be considered fairly old for a four-kilo-claiming apprentice jockey, but like many of his Singapore peers, he had to his National Service which takes up two years, not to mention he did join the workforce in the airbrushing field before he decided to sign up for the Singapore Training Academy for Racing (STAR) programme in 2005.

He first joined ex-Kranji trainer Lionel Lee as a syce before moving to another former Kranji trainer in Basil Marcus and ending up with Shaw, and finally Walker in the last five months.

“It feels so great. I'd like to thank my boss Mr Walker for his guidance and helping me with my riding,” said a delighted Amin.

“I've been waiting for this first win for so long and I'm very happy it's finally come at my 40th ride.  I've had a few seconds before, but I've not been getting very good rides. Hopefully, that first win will help me get better rides from now on.”

Amin said he had a hunch his long wait was nearing an end when he was able to hold his rails position from barrier No 1 to dictate terms aboard Fiscal Wings, a horse he has ridden four times before (all unplaced), from the get-go.

“I've ridden this horse a few times. He jumped nicely, nobody disturbed me and I think my claim of four kilos was a big help too,” he said.

Fiscal Wings ($24), a six-year-old by Fusaichi Pegasus, led all the way in the $38,000 Claiming Riders Kranji Stakes D -Division 1 race over 1100m to defeat Hidden Venture (Noh Senari) by one length with Spanish Train (Jimmy Kek) third another 2 ½ lengths away. The winning time was 1min 7.24secs.

Fiscal Wings' statistics now read four wins and seven placings from 39 local starts for stakes earnings approaching the $140,000 mark for the Remarkable Stable.

As an anecdotal side-note, Fiscal Wings' ratings as the pet horse at the Walker yard may well rise again as he is the very same horse who gave Walker his 200th Kranji win on August 22.