Blake Shinn ready for 'low key' return to race riding

MELBOURNE CUP-winning jockey Blake Shinn has spent the past couple of months with his family at Kilmore preparing for ''a low-key return'' to the sport he left in disgrace, reports the Sydney Morning Herald. It says: For the 24-year-old, it is payback for his stepfather Lee Hope and mother Carol Shinn for the help they have given him to comeback from his darkest hour. Shinn was disqualified for a year for a punting spree that cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars and his reputation. Shinn ha

MELBOURNE CUP-winning jockey Blake Shinn has spent the past couple of months with his family at Kilmore preparing for ''a low-key return'' to the sport he left in disgrace, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

It says: For the 24-year-old, it is payback for his stepfather Lee Hope and mother Carol Shinn for the help they have given him to comeback from his darkest hour.

Shinn was disqualified for a year for a punting spree that cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars and his reputation. Shinn had 2031 bets in a two-year period totalling more than $581,000. ''I don't think I would have been able to get through this without my family, particularly those very close to me,'' Shinn said.

''Mum and stepfather Lee, who has been my dad, have been so supportive and I wanted to come back for them and hopefully I can get a winner for them as I start again.

''I have been up here since August and working really hard and they have been there for me.''

Shinn has been booked to ride the Hope-trained Distillery at Sandown on Wednesday and will be back in action on Tellora, which is owned by his mother, at Seymour on Thursday.

''I just wanted a low-key return with my family around me,'' Shinn said. ''It will give me a chance to get my timing right and my eye in before I come back to [race riding in] Sydney in the new year.''

Shinn won the Melbourne Cup on Viewed in 2008 but hasn't ridden since breaking his leg in a fall from Zauberin in a race at Flemington on Cup day last year.

A couple of weeks after breaking his leg, Shinn's world fell apart when he was given a 15-month disqualification, which was reduced to a year on appeal, for gambling on races. He was revealed to have a ''pathological gaming disorder'' during the appeal process, and it is something he has worked on to overcome.