Darren Gauci

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Darren Gauci is an Australian jockey. Born in Melbourne on 26 December 1965, he won the Senior Victorian Jockeys Premiership in 1983-84, 1985-86, and 1990-91. He has come close to winning Australian racing's greatest prize on three occasions, with seconds in the Melbourne Cup on Chagemar (1984), Super Impose (1989), and On A Jeune (2005). Darren is of Maltese origin.

Gauci won five races on trainer Lee Freedman's champion Super Impose, including an Epsom Handicap (1990), and rode Lonhro to victory in the Caulfield Guineas (2001) and the St George Stakes (2004) in his two rides on the "black flash". In an extensive association with trainer John Hawkes, he also won the Thousand Guineas on Shame (1995), a Doncaster Handicap on Over (2000) and a Stradbroke Handicap on Crawl (2001), but the partnership was terminated in 2005 [1]

At the 2005 and 2006 Spring Carnivals, in Melbourne, Gauci has won feature races on El Segundo, and was narrowly beaten in the Cox Plate. Despite his experience and skill, Gauci has been largely overlooked by owners and trainers in the last year or so.

In 2000, a portrait of Gauci was hung in the Archibald Prize competition. Darren is married to his childhood sweetheart Karen Dunkerton whom he met when he made a guest appearance on the television show "Young Talent Time" in 1983.[2] Karen was a popular member of the Young Talent Team at that time and the 'starlet and the jockey' story created a large local media interest. They married in 1989 and have four children named Jade, Breeana, Sean and Brooke.