KUALA LUMPUR: October 16, 2024

Singapore Gold Cup-winning trainer David Kok has offically joined the training ranks in Kuala Lumpur although it will be some time before he sends out his first runner in Malaysia.

“I expect that to be in late November,” said Kok who is still in Singapore to oversee the winding-up of his operations there.

Kok won his first – and Singapore’s last – Gold Cup with Smart Star at Kranji last Oct 5. The Star Witness gelding, ridden by South African Muzi Yeni, came from a long way back to beat Lim’s Saltoro in a nail-biting finish.

“I always wanted to win (the Singapore Gold Cup), and finally, I won the last one,” he said then.

Smart Star is among the more than 30 horses Kok, who has been granted 50 stables by the Selangor Turf Club, will bring with him to the Malaysian capital.

“All my current owners have decided to remain with me and agreed to the move to Kuala Lumpur,” he said. “The first batch of my horses are in quarantine and the rest will follow suit.”

Kok may be embarking on a new venture with the move to Malaysia following the closure of racing in Singapore. But for the 51-year-old it will somewhat of a homecoming for the Ipoh-born, now Singapore citizen. “My parents still live in Ipoh,” he said fondly.

Kok took his first steps in horse racing in Ipoh in 1993 when he was only 20, starting off as a syce with ex-trainer Boyle Chua.

Kok then relocated to Singapore in 1996, spending two years with trainer Mick Kent before moving to Charles Leck’s yard in 1998. Following a short industrial attachment in Brisbane, Australia with various trainers, he returned to Leck and became his stable supervisor in 2000.

As Kok gained more experience, he soon earned his ‘B’ licence in 2005 before he finally got the nod for an ‘A’ licence in 2009.

Kok landed his first Group success in the Group 1 Panasonic Kranji Mile in 2013 with Cash Luck, who added a second silverware to his trophy cabinet with the Group 3 JBBA Moonbeam Vase the next year.

But the well-named Well Done topped that three years later when he gave Kok two successive Group 1 wins in the Patron’s Bowl, followed by the Emirates Singapore Derby.

Kok brought his Singapore career to dream end with his Singapore Gold Cup win earlier this month.

Malaysian racing will no doubt enjoy a fillip with his addition to the training ranks, and a few others who will also cross the causeway in the coming weeks.

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