Clyde Leck is the fresh face of changing times around the Kuala Lumpur horse racing scene. At 25, he is the Selangor Turf Club’s champion jockey just as the ink is still drying on simulcast deals that are ensuring the sport is being beamed from that pocket of South-East Asia into Australia, North America and several other points distant from Malaysia’s capital.

Leck is also a ringing endorsement for Selangor’s blossoming apprentice school, which has taken some of its cues from successful programmes run by the Japan Racing Association (JRA) and the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) and incorporated them into its own blend of training.

When the young Singaporean secured the champion jockey title at the end of last year, he did so as an apprentice. And that accomplished show by a claimer was no one-off either: four months into this season, the Selangor premiership leader is yet another apprentice, Nuqman Faris Rozi, one of 16 among the 36 jockeys that have ridden there this year.

Leck won his titles last year with 71 wins, 15 more than his nearest pursuer in the overall title race and 26 ahead of the year-older Nuqman in the apprentice standings, the latter having led that division in 2021. But while Nuqman leads the current premiership with 22 wins, Leck is down in 26th position with just four wins on the board.

Three of those came on the first day of the new year, and the rider, so prolific throughout 2022, to the point that he rode three six-timers, is not concerned about being so far off the pace, after all, he has had only 17 rides this season (Nuqman has had 145). There has been no injury, and no falling foul of the stewards for a young man described as ‘very correct’ by those who know him.

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