MAURITIUS: Shane Dye Accepts Riding Contract

Tuesday, 17 March 2009: Internationally renowned jockey Shane Dye will join Matthew Cahill as the Australian jockeys on the riding roster in Mauritius this year.

Shane Dye Photo by Racing and Sports

Dye, 42, has been frustrated by a lack of riding opportunities since he returned to Australia last year from his long eight-year stay in Hong Kong.

Dye has accepted an offer to ride under retianer in amuritius for six months.

The Kiwi-born jockey wil be riding for the successful Rousset Stable.

Dye was champion apprentice in New Zealand before he moved to Sydney in the late 1980s.

He quickly became the glmaour jockey of the time with a sequnce olf G1 wins that included the 989 Melbourne Cup and the Golden Slipper four years in succesion from 1989 to 1992 and has since won 90 Group One races in Australia.

Dye said he was not considering retirement.

"I don't want to leave Sydney but I can't get a ride," Dye said, who was riding at Kembla Grnage last Saturday when Group One racing was being conducted at Randwick.

"I get offers every week to ride in different countries around the world but I can't get a ride in Sydney."

Dye is the most successful Group One jockey riding in Australia and is third on the all-time list behind George Moore and Roy Higgins.

Matthew Cahill enjnoyed a successful season in mauritius last year and will return to ride for the Maigrot Stable.

Other jockeys invited to ride on retainer in Mauritius this year include South Africans Sherman Brown (Fok Stable), Glen Hatt (Perdrau Stable); French jockey Gaëtan Faucon (S.Henry Stable) and Peruvian jockey Guillermo Figueroa (Merven Stable).