Darby McCarthy Against All Odds

by Lauren Callaway

Melbourne Books, 2004, ISBN 1877096156, colour and black and white photographic plates, paperback

Good Condition, some edge and shelf wear, some rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, a little creasing to covers, fore-edges age-toned (see photographs)

"The racecaller, Johnny Tapp rated Darby McCarthy in the top 5 Australian jockeys to have ever ridden.  How did this 'half blood blackfella' from a squalid camp in Cunnamulla become one of the really significant indigenous Australians of the 20th century?
He rode rode his first winner at the age of 10 in borrowed silks and boots, and went on to win over 1000 races in Australia, England and France.  He created history by winning the Epsom and Derby Double at Randwick, but then plunged into a series of controversies and personal dramas that dominated his career.
Darby holds nothing back, sharing the rags to riches to rags story of a champion who battled the odds to stay in the winning circle, and struggled to find his true identity in the midst of a whirlwind of women, affairs, suicide and breakdowns."