DANNY BEASLEY BACK IN THE SADDLE IN SINGAPORE AFTER AN EXTENDED BREAK AWAY FROM RACE RIDING

By Graham Potter | Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Danny Beasley is returning to race action having being granted a license to ride in Singapore after a significant time out of the saddle.

In August 2017, Beasley, to the surprise of many, announced his retirement from race riding … but he stayed in the industry, joining the Dan Meagher stable to assist with the training of horses in the stable.

Being the stable’s senior trackwork rider, stable supervisor and then assistant trainer meant that Beasley was never far away from the action … and, with the racing bug ever-present, even if the race riding side of things was dormant for a while, Beasley’s decision to get back into the saddle is certainly logical to some degree.

Beasley had already ticked plenty of boxes during his riding career. The winner of close to 2,000 races in Australia, Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore, his successes include 20 Group 1 victories … 14 in Australia and six in Singapore, an honour role which kicked off with Victory Vein’s win in the AJC Sires' Produce Stakes in 2002.

Six of Beasley’s Australian Group 1 wins were achieved aboard the great Grand Armee back in the 2004 and 2005 … the Doncaster, the Queens Elizabeth Stakes (twice), the George Main, the Chipping Norton and the Ranvet.

The most famous win there was Grand Armee’s first Queen Elizabeth Stakes in which Grand Armee lowered the colours of the mighty Lonhro. Beasley also has a Golden Slipper under his belt having won the prestigious race on Polar Success in 2003.

The Singapore Turf Club has granted Beasley a jockey’s licence effective from February 15, 2021 until the end of the year … which has opened the door to reliving a blast from the past remembering just how good Beasley was prior to his decision in 2017.

In fact, it was only a couple of months prior to his ‘retirement’ announcement that Beasley won the Group 1 Lion City Cup in Singapore., showing that he was a force in the saddle right up until his last ride nearly four years ago.

But Beasley certainly won’t be looking back.

Chances are he still has plenty to give and that it won’t be long before he gets the scoreboard moving again.