Calvin Habib (picture via Singapore Turf Club press release)
Jockey Calvin Habib, 25, hails from South Africa where he has ridden for nine years.
He was rejected by the South African (SA) Jockey Academy twice as they assessed his frame to be too big for a jockey, but the determined young man enrolled in the work riders’ training programme at the Thoroughbred Racing Development Centre and rode nine winners from just over 50 rides under the tutelage of trainer James Maree.
He was accepted into the SA Jockey Academy in 2015 on his third try, with South African multiple champion trainer Sean Tarry one of those who recommended and supported his application.
Habib has since gone on to take out four Grade 1 wins, four Grade 2 wins and two Grade 3 wins in more than 330 winners to-date. All his four grade 1 wins were for Tarry, including the Allan Robertson Championship with Under Your Spell (2021) and Sweet Pepper (2022), the Gold Horse Medallion with Thunderstruck (2022) and the Summer Cup with Flying Carpet (2021).
Crowned the Zimbabwe champion jockey in the 2018/2019 season and Zimbabwe champion apprentice jockey in the 2016/2017 season, Habib has also ridden with success in Bahrain as an apprentice jockey during a three-month stint in 2017 where he bagged seven winners. He also represented South Africa in the Her Highness Sheikha Fatima Bint Mubarak Apprentice World Championship in France during the same year.
Licensed by the National Horseracing Authority of South Africa, Habib is currently ranked 6th on the South African jockeys’ premiership at 71 wins.
Habib goes to scale at 53kgs.
Singapore Turf Club
