Turner to make one-off riding return

Thursday 23 June 2016, 6:16pm

Retired jockey Hayley Turner will make a one-day comeback to replace the injured Michelle Payne in the Shergar Cup at Ascot.

Britain's most successful female rider called time on her career last year but answered the call to join the girls team at the annual international jockeys' competition.

Melbourne Cup-winning jockey Payne had been due to compete in the August 6 event but is sidelined for an indefinite period after suffering abdominal injuries in a race fall.

Her injury left a space in the team alongside Canadian Emma-Jayne Wilson and Cathy Gannon, who is also out of action for the moment having broken all five toes in a foot.

Turner will now fill the void and is hoping the girls team can complete back-to-back victories after a first success in 2015.

"It's a real shame that Michelle Payne is unable to join the team and I wish her a speedy recovery," Turner said.

"I'm looking forward to the challenge and hope myself, Emma-Jayne and Cathy Gannon can recreate the magic of our team's victory from last year."

Nick Smith, director of racing and communications at Ascot, said he was happy to see Turner back, albeit briefly.

"British racegoers were going to see a new female legend in Michelle Payne and we are very fortunate that such is Hayley's passion for the event, they are instead going to get a rare, and possibly last chance to see her ride competitively under formal rules again," he said.

"It's incredibly bad luck on Michelle that she suffered such a serious injury. We were very much looking forward to welcoming her to the UK - something that had been planned from the day after her Melbourne Cup victory."

– PAA

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »