Retired champion jockey Darren Beadman has joined Darley Australia as an assistant trainer to John O'Shea.

Darley Australia's managing director Henry Plumptre confirmed Beadman had started his role as O'Shea's offsider last week and has no doubts he will be an asset to the team.

Beadman, who rode Neroli to Group One success for Darley's then head trainer Peter Snowden in the 2009 Queen Of The Turf Stakes, was forced to retire from riding following head injuries sustained in a trackwork fall in Hong Kong in 2012.

He enjoyed a successful career in the saddle that included time as stable rider for John Hawkes at Crown Lodge when the racing and breeding operation was owned by the Ingham family.

Plumptre said Beadman's role would be to help O'Shea with the training of Darley's racehorses as well as providing advice on jockeys and trackwork.

"But more to the fact that he had a long association with John Hawkes when he was at Crown Lodge and he knows the system at Crown Lodge very well. He also knows a lot of the families very well," Plumptre said.

Beadman won seven Sydney jockeys' premierships during a riding career that earned him international fame.

He won Melbourne Cups on Kingston Rule in 1990 and Saintly in 1996 and enjoyed great success with the Hawkes-trained Lonhro - winning nine Group Ones on the pin-up horse which is now one of Darley's flagship stallions.

Beadman also enjoyed a successful association with Lonhro's sire Octagonal, winning the Sydney three-year-old triple crown during the 1996 autumn carnival.

Beadman was inducted into the Australian racing Hall Of Fame in 2007.

"I think it would have been a terrible waste for him just to be lost to television or something like that when he's a person who likes to be very active," Plumptre said.

"So at the appropriate time we saw where he was up to in his rehab and said `there is a role here for you if you would like to have a go at it'."

O'Shea became Darley's head trainer in Australia after Peter Snowden stood down to start a training partnership in Sydney with his son Paul.