Selangor sling for new expat jockeys

KUALA LUMPUR – It has been a long road back in the saddle for well-travelled hoop Jordan Mallyon and he was finally rewarded with a win astride Commander in a Class 4B handicap over 1,400m at Sungai Besi on Nov 22.

Mallyon rode in Malaysia between 2017 and 2019 and has been away from race riding for the best part of the last two years.

The 33-year-old has been working at trainer Matthew Hoysted’s stable in Brisbane in that time, often taking horses to provincial and country meetings as Hoysted’s foreman and race day representative.

He recently started riding trials and eventually got the bug back.

“As soon as I started to do some trials, I really started to miss it and thought I should give it another shot”, he said in an interview.

The recently married jockey returned to riding only in October and was on a plane to Kuala Lumpur shortly after.

On Commander, he jumped well from barrier 1 and held a narrow lead early on the inside of a bunch of horses.

Eventually, Wealthyness (Benny Woodworth) took over the running, making the turn out of the back straight with Cheval Pegasus (Uzair Sharudin) keeping him company from the 600m. Commander stayed a handy third.

Cheval Pegasus raced past a beaten Wealthyness to lead into the straight. Commander quickly moved up to second with his sights firmly on the new leader.

Commander ranged alongside Cheval Pegasus at the 300m and these two drew away to fight it out. It was only in the last 50m that Commander proved too strong, pulling away to win by 2¼ lengths.

“It was a relief to finally ride my first winner back,” said Mallyon.

“I had a long break before I came back over to Malaysia. It’s taken me a little bit of time to get up to speed.

“It’s my third weekend here and I think I’ve finally caught on. And I had a good horse to do it today.”

Commander won once in 14 starts at Kranji and began his Malaysian campaign with back-to-back wins in September 2024.

The son of U S Navy Flag had another win in December and has been consistent throughout 2025, winning once and placing seven times before Nov 22’s comeback win.

Mallyon was not the only expat jockey having a red-letter day.

Back in Malaysia for a year-long stint, South African jockey Kaiden Brewer was off to a perfect start when he scored on his only two rides of the afternoon.

A well-judged ride on Eruption in the Class 3 1,200m sprint was followed by a daring front-running success on Typhoon in the Class 5A 1,500m handicap.

Both winners are trained by Simon Dunderdale.

Brewer first came here for the Selangor Gold Cup in September. Although he did not win the big race, he was successful on Thunderous in the Tabcorp Trophy (Supreme A – 1,200m) before picking up another win on Pantong a week later and returning home afterwards.

“The horse (Eruption) came out nicely and travelled quite well,” said Brewer.

“Coming to the straight, I only had to chase two horses in front. My horse was going well and I knew I could pick them. Glad I got there in time.”

With Typhoon, he said it was not his intention to lead.

“The instruction wasn’t really to go the front from the wide draw (11),” he said. “Simon told me just come out and see if you can get him to be handy in a comfortable rhythm, hopefully not wide.

“But he came out of the gate so well. I was travelling really nicely, so I just took the initiative to move forward. But it actually worked out.

“When I went to the first corner he dropped the bit nicely. Once we got to the straight, he was always going to run away from them.”

Typhoon won by 1¼ lengths for his fifth win in the country, but his first since November 2024. SELANGOR TURF CLUB/TURFONLINE