Singapore Gold Cup-winning jockey Ronnie Stewart will be making a return to the Singapore racing scene, along with two new faces.

Stewart was issued a nine-month permit which begins on 1 April and ends on 31 December, while first-time licensees Joao Henrique Almansa Moreira from Brazil and Vladimir Duric from Australia have been licensed for six months (15 March to 15 September) and four months (1 April to 31 July) respectively.

The 25-year-old Stewart, a former Sydney champion apprentice jockey, first rode in Singapore in January 2006 and has since performed creditably, going on to pad up his career haul to 400 wins.

Stewart, a natural lightweight who tips the scale at 50.5kg, has always finished in the Top 10 on the overall Singapore jockey’s premiership, and was placed fifth in the Visiting Jockeys category with 30 wins and 46 placings from 332 rides.

Stewart’s career highlight in Singapore is the Singapore Gold Cup victory aboard El Dorado last year. He also bagged the 3rd Leg of the 2006 Singapore Three-Year-Old Challenge with Kelantan and the 2007 Singapore Derby Trial with Chevron.

Duric is a 31-year-old Australian jockey currently licensed by Racing Victoria. In a career spanning 15 years, Duric has won about 1250 races, two Victorian country apprentices' premierships and two Victorian country jockeys' premierships.

Based mostly in the country initially, Duric got his break in the city (Melbourne) in 2007 when he scored his first Group 1 win with Bon Hoffa in the Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes at Caulfield, which was to be followed by the biggest win of his career, the Group 1 Caulfield Cup with Master O’Reilly.

Duric had previous overseas riding stints in Mauritius and Macau. He weighs in at 53kg.

Moreira, a 25-year-old Brazilian jockey currently licensed by the Jockey Club de Sao Paulo in Brazil, began his career in 2000, and has already chalked up a tally in excess of 1,000 wins, including five wins at Grade 1 level.

Among his most famous wins in Brazil are the Grade 1 Grande Premio Diana and Grande Premio Henrique de Toledo Lara, both captured last year with top filly Bubbly Jane at Cidade Jardim.

Moreira also rode Brazilian champion Eu Tambem to success in the Grade 1 Derby Argentino in Palermo, Argentina in 2006.

Moreira, who currently leads the Sao Paulo jockey’s premiership on 110 wins and goes to scale at 51.5kg, has also ridden in France, Dubai and Uruquay and is a two-time Brazilian Eclipse Award (Trofeu Mossoro) winner (2006/7 and 2007/8).

He also holds the record of most wins in one meeting at Cidade Jardem when he scored eight wins from the 11-racecard in March 2006.