King became famous for guiding Let’s Elope to the 1991 Melbourne Cup and rode more than 50 group-one winners.
A winner of 1182 races, the 52-year-old is based at Flemington and saddled up $1.65 favourite Southern Front for the win in the first race on Friday.
He retired in 2016, having won two Melbourne jockeys premierships and watched on recently as his son, Lachlan, secured his first group-one win on Dennis Pagan (of AFL coaching fame) trained long-shot Johnny Get Angry.
Connections of his three-year-old Echuca starter filled the mounting yard after the win, mostly from Riddells Creek and Gisborne.
It was only Southern Front’s third race start, following on from the first winner from the King stable at Wangaratta on November 4.
On that occasion, Lachlan rode his first winner, Financa D’Oro, in the 1590-metre maiden.
At Echuca on Friday it was Jack Martin who took the ride and took the horse to an easing-down one-and-a-half-length win.
King only has a couple of horses in his fledgling stable and Friday was only the fifth runner of his short training career.
