Chavez In All His Glory
Panama-born jockey scores on his second day back riding at Kranji
Like Singaporean Troy See, Panama-born Oscar Chavez also bounced back with a winner on his second day after being granted a six-month licence from Jan 1.
While See achieved it on the first of his three rides on Saturday, Chavez had to wait until the last of his six rides to score on the aptly named In All His Glory in the $50,000 Class 4 Div 1 race over 1,200m on turf.
He steered the Cliff Brown-trained $30 winner from a handy position to beat the $17 favourite Federation by 11/4 lengths in 1min 11.01sec.
An emotional Chavez weighed in at a place he had not stepped on since Nov 26, 2017, when he won on Xiong Fong.
The Singapore Turf Club had not renewed his licence despite his attempts to have it reinstated. The good news came last November when he was granted the six-month licence.
The naturalised Singaporean and father of three boys would rather not dwell on the last three years, when he was left with no other choice but to fly in and out of Singapore to other countries like Macau and Malaysia to continue his trade.
"When Troy won earlier, I told myself I had to win a race, too. But, at the end of the day, it didn't matter so much if I didn't win today," said Chavez, 46, a winner of more than 1,200 races, including in his native Panama. He moved and settled in Singapore in 1993.
"I couldn't complain with the way my horses have been running so far, both today and last week. They ran according to expectations, and I just wanted to take my time and not rush.
"I knew the horses would improve bit by bit, but I did tell Cliff I thought In All His Glory was by far our best chance. The horse has been working very well, and I was very confident he would run well."
"I have to really thank Cliff for taking me on board. When I approached him to take me as a senior track rider last year, he took me in with open arms.
"Though I didn't ride a lot for him, he did give me a few rides and we've had a few winners together. I hope we will continue to have the same success for a long time to come."
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