The Singapore Turf Club has granted a one-day visiting jockey’s licence to Australian jockey Mark Zahra to ride at the Kranji Mile meeting next Saturday, 18 May.

At his last visit to Singapore in June last year, the 41-year-old Victorian jockey ran second atop the Tim Fitzsimmons-trained Golden Monkey  in the Group 3 Silver Bowl (1400m). He will now ride the Australian handler's runner, Dream Alliance, in the Group 1 Kranji Mile (1600m).

The Perth native has made six hit-and-run visits to Singapore from 2018 to 2023 and claimed his biggest Singapore victory to-date, the Group 1 Singapore Gold Cup (2000m) with the Ricardo Le Grange-trained Hongkong Great in November last year. He also rode here as a visiting rider from 2004 to 2006, thereby taking his tally of wins in Singapore to 26 thus far.

Zahra made his riding debut in Western Australia in 1998 and has chalked up more than 1,300 wins in 26 years of riding, including 32 Group 1 wins. He snared two Group 1 wins this year in a space of two weeks, namely the Australasian Oaks aboard Vibrant Sun for trainers Mick Price and Michael Kent Jr on 27 April and the Australian Oaks with Autumn Angel for trainers Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman on 13 April.

Other notable Group 1 wins of his include two Melbourne Cups aboard Without A Fight (2023) and Gold Trip (2022), two Caulfield Cups with Without A Fight (2023) and Verry Elleegant (2020), the Makybe Diva Stakes with I'm Thunderstruck and the Blue Diamond Stakes atop Daumier in 2022, as well as the TJ Smith Stakes with Santa Ana Lane in 2019.

Licensed by Racing Victoria, Zahra currently sits in 4th position on 37 winners on the Victorian Metropolitan jockeys' premiership this season. Besides Australia and Singapore, he has also ridden in France, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Macau, Mauritius, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

He goes to scale at 57kgs.