Legend of Darren Weir in tatters after stunning fall from grace

The legend of Darren Weir was once considered the turf’s ultimate rags to riches tale; now he will be exiled from the sport that has been his life — potentially forever.

Trainer Darren Weir is seen after Ringerdingding won race three, the Watch Racing.com Springtime Stakes during the Seppelt Wines Stakes Day, as part of the Melbourne Cup Carnival, at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, Saturday, November 10, 2018. (AAP Image/Julian Smith) NO ARCHIVING, EDITORIAL USE ONLY

A young wannabe trainer who quite literally rode into Stawell on the back of a horse three decades ago after his car and float collided with a rogue kangaroo and who rose to carve out the biggest stable in Australian racing history will on Wednesday walk away from the game a shattered man.

The legend of Darren Weir was once considered the turf’s ultimate rags to riches tale; now he will be exiled from the sport that has been his life — potentially forever.

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Weir was the kid from the tiny township of Berriwillock in Victoria’s bone-dry Mallee who graduated from the school of hard knocks to not only take on, but beat, the sheiks and ‘squillionaires’ to carve out a racing empire.

He won the 2015 Melbourne Cup with $101 bolter Prince Of Penzance; he set a Commonwealth record of 491 wins last season; he went from training his first winner at Avoca for a modest purse to training horses that won almost a combined $150 million since 2000.

Darren Weir rose to national prominence after Prince Of Penzance’s win in the 2015 Melbourne Cup. Picture: Tony Gough

But no one — perhaps not even the man himself — was prepared what has transpired so swiftly over the past seven days.

The collapse of Weir’s racing empire — which employed more than 150 staff and had more than 600 horses on its books — became official on Wednesday after the RAD board confirmed a four-year disqualification from racing.

The 48-year-old chose not to contest the three charges levelled at him for possessing “jiggers” — an electrical device used to affect the performance of a horse — and the one charge of conduct prejuducal to the image, interests or welfare of racing.

Darren Weir was the toast of his hometown after his Melbourne Cup success.

There could barely be any more unsavoury charges for a man previously considered a master horseman by those who know him before this sad twist to a racing career that started in virtual obscurity before turning him into a cult hero admired by $2 punters who coined the term ‘Back Weir, drink beer’ or owners seeking to transform the fortunes of their horses.

As a teenager Weir rode ponies around Berriwillock, which he once described as “a dot on the Calder Highway to Mildura”, and was coaxed into school holiday work by Austey Coffey before working as a strapper and track rider for John Castleman.

Darren Weir with She’s Archie at his stables in Ballarat.

His long-range dream had always been to become a trainer in his own right, and that led him as an 18-year-old, to joining Terry O’Sullivan’s training establishment at Stawell to start work as a horse breaker and farrier.

He made a mark from the moment he arrived in town on horseback.

“That was quite a few years ago now … when I was only 18, and had no money,” Weir reflected just moments after winning the Melbourne Cup of his arrival at Stawell that become part of the legend.

“I hit a kangaroo out on the road and had two horses out on the float going down to Terry O’Sullivan’s (place).

Darren Weir at trackwork in Ballarat in 2016. Picture: Colleen Petch.

“It was too far to walk, so I decided to ride in on a horse, and the rest is history from there.”

He added: “I started off as a horse breaker and farrier for Terry O’Sullivan, and then obviously started mucking around with a horse or two.”

By the time he struck out on his own at Stawell as a horse trainer — in 1995 — he had gathered a small stable of bush-bred horses without blue blood pedigrees and had some modest success.

Darren Weir is facing a four-year ban from racing. Picture: AAP

When he moved to Ballarat in 2002, he had around 30 gallopers, and the explosion of his stable numbers following his recent success to more than 600 horses (not including those that are unnamed) was unprecedented in racing.

Now he has none.

It is far too early to know whether the teenager who rode into Stawell on the back of a horse all those years ago and changed the Australian racing landscape can ever return to the sport, nor whether it would want to have him back.

His reputation is in tatters, and the sport is left with a taint after yet another unwanted, messy scandal.