Put your hand up if you can remember the Gr 1 Golden Slipper of 2003.
It was won by POLAR SUCCESS (Success Express-Patou) and was masterfully ridden by Danny Beasley.
Not too long after that Beasley left to ride abroad and found a perfect home in Singapore where he rode winner after winner.
But, surprising most, in 2017 he retired from race riding. The day he bowed out he rode a pair of winners, one named Dreams Come True.
This morning, four years later and at 45 years of age, the man who has ridden 14 x Gr 1 winners, announced that he would return to race riding.
Beasley is back.
He can still ride at 52kg and he will initially be based in Singapore.
“I tried when I retired, but the flame just wouldn’t go out so I’m back race riding again,” he said in Singapore today.
Originally from the Riverina district in NSW, Beasley also won Gr 1 races on Grand Armee, the Newmarket on Miss Pennymoney and has always been considered among the elite riders produced in Australia.
All-up, Beasley had in excess of 2,000 winners to his name when he hung up his boots, with around 1,500 recorded mostly in Australia, but also overseas in Hong Kong and Macau, and 528 recorded in Singapore.
While domiciled in Singapore, he won 25 ‘black listed’ races, including six at Group 1 level; two Raffles Cups (Cheyenne Dancer in 2009 and War Affair in 2014), two Kranji Miles (Cash Luck in 2013 and War Affair in 2014), one Singapore Guineas (War Affair in 2014) and one Lion City Cup (Lim’s Cruiser in 2017), incidentally his last Group 1 win a few months before he retired in September 2017.
His first rides are expected in March.
