Champion jockey’s amazing rags to riches story to be made into a documentary
Darby McCarthy is regarded as the nation's greatest Indigenous jockey. Cathy Freeman met him when she was 15. McCarthy was born in Cunnamulla in outback western Queensland. He rode the winners of three Stradbroke Handicaps, plus the Doomben 10,000, Brisbane Cup, Tancred Stakes and the Epsom Handics-AJC Australian Derby double in 1969. His riding talent was recognised worldwide and he had lucrative riding contracts in Europe for some of the sport's richest owners. Ronald Simpson, 22, an emerging Aboriginal apprentice jockerer, will play the role of McCarthy in the documentary.
