Dramatic documentary on late great Darby McCarthy in need of funding

Organisers of a dramatic documentary telling the life and times of the trailblazing jockey Darby McCarthy are urging those in the racing industry to dig deep and help fund the movie which can be kept forever.

Darby McCarthy’s life is being made into a documentary.

Popular bush jockey Ronald Simpson will play the role of the late, great Darby McCarthy in a documentary that is desperate for funding to tell the story of the trailblazing Aboriginal jockey who has one of the most remarkable tales.

Film makers David Waddington and Chris O’Reilly are looking to raise $200,000 to produce the film ‘In a Life Time’, which interviews those who knew and worked with McCarthy.

The Australian Racing Hall of Famer was born in sandhills camp at Cunnamulla in western Queensland and made it to be one of the world’s best jockeys at his peak before dying in May 2020.

READ | Indigenous jockey to bring ‘Black Magic' to Brisbane

A race named in his honour was run at Doomben on Saturday, with O’Reilly saying it is the perfect opportunity to get momentum behind his dramatised documentary to tell the story.

“We are that close to finishing it, it is a story that no script writer could ever write,” O’Reilly, a long-term friend of McCarthy said.

“I am a horse trainer and I have been in the film industry all my life. I took a documentary to Cannes in 2017 about motorbikes thinking everyone was into that, but when I got over there to the film festival, all the market wanted horse stories.

“I got home and I rang Uncle Darby and asked him what was happening and he said ‘I’m upright and I’m breathing’.

Jockey Ronald Simpson will play the role of Darby McCarthy.

“I asked him what was happening with his story, he said ‘everyone’s talking, no one’s walking.‘

“So I said I would see him the next weekend, we kept going out there and filming him, so he was telling his own story.

“Then we are dramatising it, there is Lyall Appo playing the older Darby and Ronald Simpson the jockey playing him as well.”

Simpson, who calls himself “Black Magic” is a popular jockey in New South Wales and tried his hand in Brisbane under the tutelage of Tony Gollan.

READ | Race honour for champion indigenous jockey

The young hoop bases his riding off McCarthy and has previously told Racenet how proud he was of his indigenous heritage.

“They call me Ronnie or Ron, but I have a nickname of Black Magic and I love it,” Simpson previously said.

“I’m Aboriginal and it suits me, so I changed all my social media to Black Magic, it has been good.

“I go to the races and everyone knows me by Black Magic, some people might think it’s a racist thing but I am happy they call me it because it makes me proud.

“It gives me more motivation when I hear it, I think about my people back home and want to do them proud as well.”

So far $90,000 of the $200,00 goal has been raised for the documentary.

Originally published as Dramatic documentary on late great Darby McCarthy in need of funding