Former two-time MRA champ Martin Sng dies
Skilful, friendly, funny, unselfish and generous.
These are some of the attributes of former two-time Malayan Racing Association champion jockey Martin Sng Guan Seng, who died on Tuesday at the National University Hospital. He was 73.
The divorcee leaves behind two sons and a daughter.
“For the last three years, he was bedridden after suffering a stroke, and then had dementia. His health deteriorated lately and he was warded on Jan 1 and passed away this morning,” said his second brother, Peter, a 78-year-old retiree.
Sng’s wake is at Church of St Stephen at Sallim Road. His funeral is on Thursday.
His peers from the Bukit Timah era were saddened by the loss of a friend and local hero.
“I was a few years his junior when we were apprenticed to Ivan Allan. We slept in the stable together. He was approachable, not selfish and taught me a lot. He was a skilful rider,” said Leslie Khoo, a top local jockey-turned-trainer.
Sng would call me without fail on the first day of every Chinese New Year, until recent years, and he was cute and funny.
He would go “Tan Thean Loon, Happy New Year” and hang up after I wished him back.
I am fortunate to have such a friend. May his soul rest in peace..
A stocky person, Sng was one of the most successful local riders from the 1970s to 1990s.
A former glamour apprentice, he was the second local rider, after Ng Kim Chor in 1986, to win the premiership. He won it twice – in 1990 and 1992.
He started his riding career in 1969, notching his first winner, Vagabond, at his fifth ride.
He captured his first classic, aboard the Allan-trained Dilettante, in the 1974 Singapore Derby while still an apprentice.
More major successes followed – two King’s Gold Cups (on Jubilation III in 1979 and South Of France III in 1991), two Penang Governor’s Gold Cups (Classic Account in 1990 and Hard Rock in 1991) and the Sultan of Selangor Gold Cup (Paititi Gold in 1982).
Sng briefly retired in 1987 before making a comeback two years later.
He duly won his first jockeys’ title in 1990 with 59 winners and the second with 47.
He received RM10,000 (then about S$6,700) for winning the first championship but donated half of it to a charity for the handicapped and the other half to the Malaysian Jockeys Association.
He represented the local circuit in the Asian Racing Conference in Hong Kong in 1991 and finished third in one of the races.
He also rode Hard Rock to finish unplaced in the 1993 Hong Kong International Cup.
He retired after suffering serious head injuries in a race fall on May 27, 1995, and later tried his hand at training but did not succeed.
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