Blake's new Dawn breaks

4 min read

by Bren O'Brien

An emotional Blake Shinn made the perfect comeback to race riding at Randwick on Saturday, guiding promising 2-year-old Dawn Passage (Dawn Approach {Ire}) to victory before becoming the first jockey in nearly three years to win board Tom Melbourne (Ire) (Dylan Thomas {Ire}).

Shinn has spent over five months on the sidelines after a fall in a barrier trial at Randwick in August left him with a serious neck injury which threatened his career.

Dawn Passage was his first race ride since August 11 and he returned in the best possible way, bringing the Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott-trained colt with a strong finish to score by 3.3l to an impressive debut in the Australian Turf Club H.

He then claimed stakes success on Chris Waller's Tom Melbourne in the Listed Carrington S. The 8-year-old had not saluted the judge since March 2016, enduring one of Australian racing's most famous losing streaks, which had stretched to 30 races.

"Part of me wants to cry to be honest," Shinn said after Dawn Passage's win. "It’s been a long road. There are a lot of people that have helped me get here. I know I've put in the work, but there's been a lot of support"

"Part of me wants to cry to be honest. It’s been a long road." - Blake Shinn

Shinn, a winner of 20 Group 1 races, including a Melbourne Cup and a Golden Slipper S. missed many good rides during the spring, but is just grateful to be back in the saddle heading into the autumn.

"I believe in fate and I believe someone was looking down on me."

Dawn Passage could be a colt that takes Shinn all the way to the G1 Golden Slipper S., a race he won aboard Capitalist (Written Tycoon) in 2016, having confirmed his quality with an emphatic win in class record time of 56.55s, only a couple of lengths outside of Redzel's (Snitzel) track record.

Blake Shinn

"Adrian has been speaking to me all week about him," Shinn said. "I appreciate Gai and Adrian having so much faith in me on my first day back to ride such an impressive horse."

"I appreciate Gai and Adrian having so much faith in me on my first day back to ride such an impressive horse." - Blake Shinn

"They had confidence in him to know that he is going to run well. They said let him find his feet, he'll come with a devastating late run and everything worked out."

"Didn’t he put the race to bed? It was a great feeling that final 100m."

Dawn Passage has now booked his ticket into the $2m Inglis Millennium at Warwick Farm on February 9.

"He is an Inglis horse and there's that race in two weeks' time which they were hoping to get prize-money to get him in to. He's certainly done that today. He’ll make his presence felt and he's done well," Shinn said.

Colt looks a bargain buy

A $150,000 buy for his trainers and Blue Sky Bloodstock at the 2018 Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale, Dawn Passage is out of multiple group winner Raja Lane (Devaraja {NZ}), who has already produced stakes-winner Dinkum Diamond (Keep The Faith).

Waterhouse was rapt with what she saw from the colt and is looking forward to bigger things later in the autumn.

"The world is his oyster now." - Gai Waterhouse

"What an exciting colt and now he's eligible for the $2 million race. He's a lovely horse. We said to Blake, just relax, because we knew that there was going to be a lot of speed up front," she said.

Dawn Passage as a yearling

"The world is his oyster now. The Slipper is not that far away, and that $2 million race only a couple of weeks away."

Waterhouse was particularly pleased for the group of owners in the colt, which includes a couple of syndicates and some new to the sport.

"There's a lovely group of owners in him, A couple of first-time owners. It’s a dream come true. It could only happen in Australia. What a wonderful country we've got and here we are on Australia Day and we’ve won the first," she said.