John Maynard is a professor of Aboriginal studies at Newcastle University and the author of Aboriginal Stars of the Turf and Fight for Liberty and Freedom. He is one of the most prolific and respected voices writing about Aboriginal history in Australia today.

Aborigines and the ‘Sport of Kings’

Indigenous Jockeys in Australian Racing History

By John Maynard, Barry Pascoe

Aboriginal Studies Press

Copyright © 2013 John Maynard
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-922059-54-3

Contents

Foreword by Richard Waterhouse,
Preface,
Acknowledgements,
Introduction: Aboriginal jockeys — a proud past but an uncertain future?,
PART I: BEHIND THE BARRIERS — THE BACKGROUND TO INDIGENOUS INVOLVEMENT IN RACING,
The Arrival of the horse,
Off and Racing: Characters and yarns from the Inner Sanctum,
Identity, Racing and Racism,
Aboriginal Women in Racing,
To the Finish Line,
PART II: RIDING HIGH: THE STARS OF THE TURF,
Peter St Albans,
Rae ‘Togo’ Johnstone,
David Hugh ‘Darby’ Munro,
Merv Maynard,
Frank Reys,
Norm Rose,
Richard Lawrence ‘Darby’ McCarthy,
Leigh-Anne Goodwin,
PART III: AHEAD OF THE FIELD: MORE INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIAN JOCKEYS,
Charlie Flannigan,
Percy Kennedy,
Massa Read,
Jimmy Dries,
Besley Murray,
Stan Johnson,
Kenny Broderick,
Barry Hagan,
Frank and Jack Duval,
Doug Hodgson,
Gordon Taylor,
Jimmy Leslie,
Harry Fuller,
Bill O’Brien,
David Mathews,
Merv Marion,
Reg ‘Punter’ Hart,
William Lord,
Geoff Booth,
Glen Pickwick,
Lyall Appo,
Bradley Appo,
Paul Timbery,
Rosalyn and Rod Bynder,
Gaynor Chambers,
Bibliography,
Index,

CHAPTER 1

THE ARRIVAL OF THE HORSE

The sight, sounds and smells of those magnificent animals from close quarters

Australia’s first horses arrived in 1788 with the stallion, three mares and three yearlings that Governor Phillip had acquired at the Cape of Good Hope while en route to Australia. Within 20 years, this number had been boosted to 117.

Australian Indigenous people’s first contact with the European animals was one of bewilderment and terror. Aboriginal people from the Gippsland area in Victoria thought that the noise of gunfire came from the horses’ nostrils. The Kurnai of Gippsland thought they were huge dogs that would devour them all. On first encountering them, these terrified people struck camp and cleared out. Individuals from the Booandick people of south-eastern South Australia were terrorised from their sleep as they camped and thought of cattle as some kind of earthquake (literally ‘thunder in the ground’) or ghost.

Aboriginal people had good cause to fear the horse. Violent massacres and unprovoked vicious attacks were conducted from horseback. From his mission at Lake Macquarie, Reverend LE Threlkeld noted:

Many Aborigines … were driven into a swamp, and mounted police rode round and round, and shot them off indiscriminately until they were all destroyed … men, women and children … Forty-five heads were collected and boiled down for the sake of the skulls.

— Gunson 1974

Aboriginal skulls and other skeletal remains were highly prized by museum curators back in England at the time.

Although blameless for these atrocities, the horse gave the early settlers a decided advantage, providing mobility and speed over great distances. The violent nature of the frontier and the horse’s role in it must have been a dramatic and frightening assault on the psyche of Aboriginal people. In a world that was changing dramatically around them, it was natural that they would want to gain knowledge and understanding of this new phenomenon, and within a short time they had shed the