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The Singapore Turf Club has granted a visiting jockey’s licence to Australian jockey Blaike McDougall for the period from 7 September to 5 October 2024.

After having ridden in Australia for the past 10 years, the 30-year-old jockey will be at his first stint overseas.

Born in Ryde, a north-western suburb in Sydney and brought up in Portland, McDougall grew up playing football and had no interest in racing though his father, Ron, was a jockey. But as the future looked bleak for him as a professional footballer, the natural lightweight soon found himself apprenticed to trainer Con Karakatsanis and then David Payne at the age of 18.

McDougall made his debut in 2013 and won aboard the Payne-trained Sumitro in December that year but around eight months later, he quit after feeling burnt out and lived aimlessly for a couple of years before he resurrected his riding career with Sydney trainer John Thompson. Family commitments then brought him to his wife Danielle's hometown in Albury, New South Wales, where he won the champion country jockey title twice in the 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 seasons.

After finishing second to Chris Parnham in the National Jockey's Premiership in 2021, he moved to Melbourne, Victoria, where he scored atop the Peter Moody-trained Oxley Road in the 2021 Group 2 Caulfield Sprint. McDougall also has five other Group 3 wins among close to 900 wins in Australia thus far.

Currently licensed by Racing Victoria, he finished 13th on the 2023/2024 Victoria Jockey's Premiership on 75 wins. He goes to scale at 54kgs.