Darby McCarthy OAM

Richard 'Darby' McCarthy OAM (1945–2020), former jockey who rode in three Melbourne Cups and won more than 1000 races, is a proud descendant of the Mithaka and Goongurri people of south-west and central Queensland. Born in Cunnamulla into a family of thirteen children, he left school at the age of nine to start work on Yakara Station, over 900 km west of Brisbane, where he became interested in horseriding. He won his first race at an amateur meeting in Thargomindah at age ten; he then went to Brisbane, lying about his age so as to start a jockey’s apprenticeship with the Queensland Turf Club. By the age of 21 he'd ridden a number of winners at Doomben, including in the Stradbroke Handicaps of 1963, 1964 and 1966. He won the Brisbane Cup and the Doomben 10,000 before moving to Sydney where, in 1969, he created history by winning the AJC Derby and the Epsom Stakes on the same day. He then spent a year in Paris on a hefty retainer that funded a lavish but damaging lifestyle. After returning home he found work in Victoria, but in 1976, aged 31, McCarthy was disqualified from racing for seven years having been accused of helping to fix a race at the Hamilton Cup meeting. Though it was later proven that he had suffered a miscarriage of justice – he was exonerated by the Victoria Racing Club in 2007 – the scandal effectively ended his racing career. He returned to Queensland in the 1990s and settled in Toowoomba. McCarthy has been cited as an inspiration by Cathy Freeman and other Indigenous athletes. He was heavily engaged as an Elder in community work, such as serving on the University of Southern Queensland's Elders Advisory Board, and initiated a number of programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people including the Darby McCarthy Employment Strategy. In his later years McCarthy reiterated the importance of 'the stories of the blackfellas in sport', and called for improved documentation of and greater storytelling about Australia's Indigenous sporting history.