In February 2023, Calvin Habib left South Africa for Singapore to pursue his dream of riding on the international stage. However, three months later, he has made the decision to return home.
His three month stint yielded two wins from 51 rides over 12 meetings since his February debut and he cites the lack of racing as the main reason for his decision.
The young rider, who celebrated his 26th birthday on 19 February, acknowledges, "It's a bit of a 180, but before I came out here, I was told the number of race meetings would increase to twice a week. However, once I arrived, I realised the horse population is just not big enough to support it. I went from having 35 race rides a week at home to just three or four and it felt like it was taking forever to get to the next race meeting."
For someone who was the hardest-working rider on the local log with 772 rides to his credit by February, it was untenable.
"It was a dream to come and ride in Singapore and I'm happy to have been able to experience that, but at this stage of my career, I want to get as much race riding as possible."
Calvin has five rides at his farewell meeting at Kranji on Saturday, including a Grade 1 opportunity on Circuit Mission in the prestigious SGR1 million Grade 1 Kranji Mile and leaves Singapore on Sunday morning.
However, Singapore's loss is South Africa's gain. Calvin is looking forward to getting home and confirms he intends to hit the ground running, making himself available for rides for the Turffontein meeting Tuesday, 23 May 2023 onwards.
"The Durban season has just started, aim once decision, so I'd like to get back into the swing of things as quickly as possible, hopefully get some rides in the Grade 1's and maybe win one or two," he adds with a smile.
We wish Calvin and Shandre safe travels.