Cover image courtesy of the National Library of Australia
In the grand history of Australian racing, if ever there was a jockey that could light up a grandstand, it was the garrulous Darby Munro. A swarthy, wavy-haired, dark delight of a man, he had eyebrows that would have put Bart Cummings back in his box.
Through the 1930s and 1940s, Munro was the loud, driven, ‘big as all outdoors’ star of the Sydney jockeys’ room and, with all that personality, there was a brilliant career too.
He rode the Melbourne Cup winners Peter Pan, Sirius and Russia to their famous victories, along with stars like Shannon, Ajax, Hall Mark and Rogilla (Roger De Busli {GB}). He won three Sydney Cups and a total of 10 Derbies Australia-wide.
Darby Munro and Rogilla's trainer Les Haigh at Randwick, 1934 | Image courtesy of the National Library of Australia
Munro was a big-money rider. In Sydney, they called him ‘Mr Wonderful’.
He’d show up to the boxing on a Friday night, taking his seat among cheers like some sort of celebrity, and the following day he’d either be a king or a pariah, depending on the race results he delivered. On certain occasions, he was heckled and abused like no jockey in the history of Australian riding. On other days, he could do no wrong.
As a jockey, there were few as aggressive and determined as Munro, and it was why he was coined ‘the Demon Darb’. He was best in a tight finish, charging his mounts through a hole that wasn’t often there. He would scream down the younger riders so they would get out of his way, and it worked time and time again.
Darby Munro aboard 1933 Melbourne Cup winner Hall Mark at Randwick 1933 | Image courtesy of the National Library of Australia
It was written that he wasn’t stylish like Billy Duncan, and he wasn’t still and graceful like Jim Pike. Instead, Darby Munro rode like he lived his life... loud, determined and compulsive.
He drove a showy black Cadillac, was married three times and lived in opulence on Wansey Road, opposite Randwick Racecourse. He drank, smoked, ate very little, and he was as brawny and polarising a character as Sydney racing has ever coughed up.
Munro was born David Hugh Munro at Caulfield in 1913. His father was the respected trainer Hugh Munro at St Albans Stud, and his brother was the more demure but equally brilliant rider Jim Munro.
The 1934 King's Cup at Randwick with Rogilla and Darby Munro on the rails getting up in a famously tight finish ahead of Peter Pan (centre) and Kuvera | Image courtesy of Wikipedia
While it’s often thought that Munro was nicknamed ‘Darby’ after the Classic race, in fact he got this moniker from his handshake, which was so firm his father used to tease him that he’d break out of handcuffs, or ‘darbys’ as they were known by early convicts. Forevermore, and right up to today, he was known as Darby Munro.
His early exposure to racing was aboard such horses as Manfred, Rampion and Bicolor, true stars of 1920s Australia that he rode in early morning work, and one of his earliest mentors was the big-money punter Eric Connolly. From Connolly, he learned the value of good money and fine clothes.
Munro retired from the saddle in 1955 and, like many high fliers in the jockeys’ room, he took out a trainer’s ticket, but he had only ordinary success. Through the sixties, he was seen frequently at the Coogee Bay Hotel, which was owned by his third wife, Kathleen.
In 1964, two years before his death, Munro had a leg amputated owing to acute diabetes. He died from a brain haemorrhage in Sydney Hospital in April 1966. It was a sad end to life for a character that was larger than it for almost all of his 53 rollicking years.
