Wilson-Taylor flies in for Golden Monkey
With Schofield unavailable, owners snap up Brisbane Top 10 jockey for G1 QEII Cup ride
Chad Schofield will give the $300,000 Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup (1,800m) on Sept 7 a miss, but the connections have not taken long to find a replacement.
Block-booked for several feature race assignments on Golden Monkey in 2024, Schofield has already fulfilled five engagements.
The Sydney jockey made one of them count in the Group 3 Fortune Bowl (1,400m) in February, finishing in the money in the other four races, including a second in the Group 1 Lion City Cup (1,200m).
However, Schofield had to drop out this time. He was unable to free himself from some big-race engagements in Randwick on the same day.
“Chad rang me to say he had important riding commitments back home and could not make it for the QEII Cup,” said Golden Monkey’s trainer Tim Fitzsimmons.
“We had to quickly get a replacement for Golden Monkey, and we’re lucky that Kyle Wilson-Taylor has agreed to take the ride. The stewards have already approved his one-day licence.”
The 24-year-old Brisbane-based jockey will be on his maiden visit in Singapore, although his hyphenated name was not getting keyed into the licensing database for the first time.
Wilson-Taylor was actually all set to pay his first Kranji visit at the Group 1 Singapore Derby meeting on July 21.
Champion trainer Jason Ong then approached him to ride Great Warrior for the Lucky Stable in the four-year-old classic, but the pitstop visit fell through when the horse was withdrawn.
A fallback option to ride Ong’s other runner, long shot Roda Robot, could not persuade him to take the eight-hour flight.
In pulling the pin, he was effectively taking a rain check because he put his hand up again when a second opportunity arose seven weeks later.
A winner of 340-odd races in six years of riding, Wilson-Taylor will finally get to take his saddle to Singapore at least once before its racing disappears after Oct 5.
The Victorian-born jockey did not hail from a family with a horsey, let alone racing background. It is actually well-documented that after years of strife as a homeless teenager, he managed to get off the Melbourne back alleys to become one of Queensland’s most sought-after jockeys.
On his grandfather’s advice to follow a career as a jockey because of his slight stature, Wilson-Taylor first cut his teeth as an apprentice at Coffs Harbour.
He got off to a flier at his riding debut, on one of his first three rides at Port Macquarie in July 2018.
It was only when he moved upstate to Queensland trainer Lindsay Hatch that his meteoric rise began.
He was crowned Brisbane champion apprentice jockey in the 2021/2022 season and graduated to seniors’ rank in March 2023.
A first Group 1 success came on Palaisipan in the Tattersall’s Tiara at Eagle Farm on June 24.
Singapore will not be his maiden voyage to an overseas racing centre. In March, he crossed the Tasman Sea to New Zealand where he won the Group 2 Wellington Guineas on Grail Seeker at Trentham.
Currently licensed by Racing Queensland, Wilson-Taylor, who weighs 54kg, finished in 10th place on 27 wins on the 2023/2024 Queensland metropolitan jockeys’ premiership.
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