#HORSERACING: GARY STEVENS ANNOUNCES RETURN TO HORSE RACING

Huge day in Horse Racing as Celebrity Jockey and Hall of Famer, Gary Stevens, who at the age of 50, is coming out of retirement.  Stevens announced his retirement in 2005 after a celebrated careeer which saw him win the Industry’s top honour, the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Jockey in 1998.

Since then, Stevens has gone-on to make a name for himself appearing in Films such as Oscar-nominated Seabiscuit and HBO‘s ill-fated but acclaimed Series, Luck.  He also has appeared as an Anchor on both HRTV and NBC Sports.

Despite downplaying rumours of his return to riding, Stevens announced earlier today on HRTV that he would be coming-out of retirement, later Tweeting Fans, “Just wanted to say thank you. I won’t let you down.”.  He is said to have been training secretly at Pegasus Training & Equine Rehabilitation Center in Washington.

To put this into perspective for those not familiar with the Sport, this is equivalent to Mike Tyson returning to Boxing or Wayne Gretzky returning to Hockey. Okay, maybe not that dramatic, but you get the idea!  Crossing fingers we see him here at Woodbine for some of our major races later this year!

Follow Stevens on Twitter here.

(Photo credit: Universal Pictures)