Champion jockey Darren Beadman has confirmed his riding career is over as he struggles with the effects of head injuries suffered in a fall in February.
The 46-year-old came off a horse which broke both its legs in a barrier trial at Hong Kong’s Sha Tin racecourse and after initially believing a fractured cheekbone was all he had suffered, the jockey was diagnosed with damaged neurons and nerves in his brain.
The condition known as a diffuse-axonal injury, affects balance, speech and memory.
The winner of two Melbourne Cups for trainer Bart Cummings, Beadman told Channel Nine’s Sixty Minutes he accepted his career in the saddle was over.
“I know it’s finished,” Beadman said.
“From what the medical team have told me I’d probably end up in a nursing home if it happened again.
“Basically my career’s over.”
Beadman said he counted himself lucky to have been able to spend his life doing what he loved – being around horses.
“Thirty odd years of excitement, that’s how I look at it,” he said.
“I feel I had a few more years to go.
“It’s been a fabulous journey. I’ve been really blessed to be able to do something in life I really wanted to do.
“I love horses. They are good therapy.”
“I had a great day in the sun. Now it’s a matter of trying to make the best of what I’ve got.”
A champion apprentice, Beadman won his first Group One race as a 19-year-old when he steered Inspired in the 1984 Golden Slipper.
He went on to win seven Sydney premierships and almost every big race on the Australian calendar including the Melbourne Cup on Kingston Rule in 1990 and again on Saintly six years later.
In 1997 Beadman retired from riding to study to become a preacher with Cummings famously saying he should seek a second opinion.
Beadman’s love of horses lured him back to racing three years later and he formed an indomitable association with Jack and Bob Ingham’s Woodlands operation.
He won nine Group One races on the Ingham’s pride and joy Lonhro, a son of Octagonal who Beadman partnered to the three-year-old triple crown in the autumn of 1996.
In 2007, the year he was inducted to the Australian Racing Hall of Fame, Beadman relocated to Hong Kong where he formed a successful association with trainer John Moore.
He and his wife Kim now live in Sydney where his rehabilitation continues.
