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One of New Zealand's best-known racing exports is returning to Sydney where he shot to fame.
Jockey Shane Dye, 41, confirmed yesterday he was returning to the Sydney riding ranks in time for the autumn carnival - eight years after he took up a contract in Hong Kong.
"Although I've loved my time in Hong Kong, I'm looking forward to riding in Sydney again," Dye told Sydney's Daily Telegraph.
"The timing is just right because the Sydney autumn carnival is just around the corner and the one thing I really missed in Hong Kong was Australia's major racing carnivals.
"Plus my boys, Nicholas (16) and Jack (5), have been asking me for ages to come back to Sydney. They are desperate for me to be closer to them and I want to be closer to them."
The former Matamata jockey who was apprenticed to top trainer Dave O'Sullivan, has won a Melbourne Cup on Tawriffic in 1989, a Cox Plate on Octagonal in 1995, and a remarkable four Golden Slippers.
He has 90 group one wins in Australia, third behind George Moore (119) and Roy Higgins (108) on the all-time list. Dye has shown courage to fight his way back into the saddle after a horror fall in Hong Kong in 2006. He spent time in a coma and had surgery to relieve bleeding on his brain, but was back riding just three months later.
- NZPA
