Turner draws blank on Newmarket return Hayley Turner was out of luck from three rides in her mini-comeback at Newmarket. Ground-breaking rider Turner officially retired at the end of last season, but is limbering up to again captain the Girls team at the Shergar Cup at Ascot, stepping in for the Melbourne Cup-winning Michelle Payne after she was forced to withdraw due to injury. Her first mount back in a shade over eight months came aboard Yankee Mail for Gay Kelleway in the fillies' handicap, but while making some late ground from off the pace she had to settle for a well-beaten fifth. Next for Turner was Marco Botti's Clenymistra in the Colchester Cancer Centre Campaign Maiden Fillies' Stakes, but the daughter of Poet's Voice could never get competitive and was last of the six runners. The rider rounded off her evening aboard James Fanshawe's He's My Boy in the concluding Maritime Cargo Services Handicap. For a while it looked as though Turner might clinch victory as her mount loomed up to challenge inside the final furlong, but the grey eventually faded into third as Robero won his third race in succession and provided trainer Brian Ellison with his 1,000th winner. Leading the women's team to Shergar Cup glory last season was just one of the highlights of the Turner CV and she was last month awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to horseracing. She became the first female rider to win a Group One contest outright in Britain when steering the David Simcock-trained Dream Ahead to victory in the July Cup at Newmarket in 2011 and followed up when Margot Did won the Nunthorpe Stakes for Michael Bell a month later. Simcock supplied Turner - former joint-champion apprentice and the first woman to ride over 100 winners in a calendar year - with another victory at the top level courtesy of I'm A Dreamer in the Beverly D. Stakes at Arlington in 2012. She has one booked ride at Newmarket today, the Henry Candy-trained Where Next in the Greenall's Gin Maiden Stakes.
