Paddy Payne

Paddy Payne was a New Zealand-born jumps jockey, dairy farmer and racehorse trainer whose quiet, stubborn life in racing produced one of Australia's best-known sporting families. He died at 90 on 8 September 2026 at the family home in Miners Rest, near Ballarat, Victoria. His daughter Therese, speaking for the family, said he passed away peacefully in his sleep, early that morning at home, and that he got to have his dying wish. A cause of death was not made public. Racing Victoria, the Australian Trainers' Association, the Victorian Jockeys' Association and the Ballarat Turf Club all paid tribute the same day.

This page is for Paddy Payne, also known as Paddy Payne Snr. His public name is Paddy Payne. Obituaries do not print a different legal given name, and he should not be treated as Patrick Payne. His son Patrick Payne, the Group 1 jockey and later trainer, is a different person. The slug for this profile is paddy-payne. The slug patrick-payne is not this page and must not be used for the father.

He was born and raised in Hawera, a small town in South Taranaki, New Zealand. Obituaries do not print a birth certificate date, and they do not print 16 March as a calendar birthday. They do say that his last runner, Nip, raced at Kilmore on 6 March 2026, ten days before his 90th birthday. Ten days after 6 March 2026 is 16 March 2026, which places that 90th birthday in 2026 and the birth year in 1936. The day is derived from that report. It is not stored here as a sourced calendar birth date. The year 1936 is what the age of 90 in 2026 supports. He spent more than half his life in New Zealand. He rode as a jumps jockey, trained a small string, and worked a dairy farm. Later interviews quoted by NZ Racing News have him saying, "I grew up in Hawera and had a bit of success when I was over there," and describing the family as owner-trainers who "had a few cheap horses and cast-offs" and still "won decent races along the way." Education beyond that working life is not made public.

The horse that changed the family's map was Our Paddy Boy. Late-1970s reports and 2026 obituaries agree that Payne bought the horse for $1,300. Sources differ on whether the purchase was as a weanling or a yearling. He broke the colt in on the dairy farm. In 1980 Our Paddy Boy won the Group 1 Ellerslie Sires' Produce Stakes over 1400 metres. Payne later sold him to the British businessman Robert Sangster for a reported $300,000, a sum that helped fund the move to Australia. Under later care the horse won the AJC Derby, the Sydney Cup and the Adelaide Guineas. Those later Group wins were not trained by Payne.

The Hawera council needed the family property for settling pools. Payne said they reached an agreement, crossed to Australia, and meant the stay to be a trial. "We initially made the move for two years, just to see how we go," he told Racing.com. When the two years were up he suggested going back, because the dollar was strong and they could do well with the money they had. His wife Mary said she liked it there and thought they should stay. They stayed. Eight of the children were born in New Zealand. The two youngest, Michelle and Stevie, were born in Australia. The home and stables were at Miners Rest, just outside Ballarat, and that is where he still lived when he died, more than 40 years after the move. A feature outline has mentioned early time in Switzerland and the United Kingdom for Paddy and Mary, but that detail was not confirmed in a fetched full text, so it is not stated here as fact.

He and Mary had 10 children. Eight became professional jockeys. NZ Racing News, in its 8 September 2026 vale, listed riding careers this way: Patrick rode 936 winners, 19 of them Group 1, including the 2002 Cox Plate on Northerly; Michelle rode 772 winners, five of them Group 1 (her English Wikipedia page lists 779 career wins); Therese rode 443 winners and was first of the siblings into the headlines, winning as a 14-year-old in the mid-1980s and becoming the youngest rider to outride a country claim; Maree rode 435; Cathy 219; Bernadette 188; Andrew 166; Brigid 41. The two who did not ride professionally were Margaret and Stephen, known as Stevie, who has Down syndrome.

Tragedy arrived soon after the family settled. Mary was killed in a car accident in April 1986, when Michelle, born on 29 September 1985, was six months old. Payne raised the 10 children on his own, with the older children taking on adult work overnight. Michelle later said Bernadette, then about 11, got up in the night to feed her and then fell asleep at school. In 2025 Payne told Racing.com's Kate Watts, as quoted by NZ Racing News, that Mary would always be the love of his life and that he thought about her every day. One published line is slightly broken in the source ("She's will always be the love of my life"). The meaning in the same interview is clear, and the next sentences are firm: "But when she got killed, we said we've got to make it now, we've got to give it a go. And we did that, we gave it our best shot."

He kept training cheap and tried horses rather than a glamour stable. The Australian Trainers' Association said he held a Victorian trainer's licence for more than 40 years after earlier success in New Zealand. In 1986 The Filbert, trained by him, finished third behind the Cox Plate quinella of Bonecrusher and Our Waverley Star, then was a Melbourne Cup favourite before being scratched after damaging a hoof while rearing in the float. He never saddled a Melbourne Cup runner. The closest family path to that race ran through his children.

Patrick became the star rider of the next generation, then a trainer after weight ended his riding career. That riding and training record belongs to the son, not to this profile. Michelle left school at 15, the eighth of the children to ride, and on 3 November 2015 won the Melbourne Cup on Prince of Penzance at 100-1, the first woman to win the race. Stevie was the strapper. Her speech, telling parts of the sport that did not think women were strong enough to "get stuffed," made the family known far outside racing. Payne's own comment on the later film, relayed by Michelle to The Guardian in 2019, was laconic: he thought the ending was good.

In 2019 Rachel Griffiths directed Ride Like a Girl, with Teresa Palmer as Michelle and Sam Neill as Paddy. Stevie played himself. Neill spent one day with the real Paddy and Michelle before filming. He told The Guardian that they circled round each other, that Payne was deeply suspicious and Neill slightly in awe, and that Payne said: "I've never seen any of your movies, Sam, but they tell me you're going pretty good." In another interview Neill called him a bit scary and said he was grateful Payne did not visit the set, because it is a worry when you are playing someone real. Producer Richard Keddie called Payne one of his favourite all-time people for raising 10 children on his own. Racing Victoria chief executive Aaron Morrison later said his positive influence on female jockey participation cannot be undersold, because he encouraged his daughters to ride at a time when female jockeys were fighting for acceptance.

The family also lived with grief that never left the record. Eldest daughter Brigid died in 2007 at 36, of a heart attack after a bad trackwork fall. Second-eldest daughter Bernadette died in March 2025 at 51. Therese said the family hoped their father had joined their mum and brother and sisters. The obituaries name the sisters. They do not name the brother in that sentence. An unverified celebrity biography that invents dates and extra children is not used here. No later marriage is mentioned in the obituaries.

Payne kept going on a small team. Miner's Miss, which he said cost him $10,000, ran third in the 2018 Group 1 VRC Oaks at Flemington and earned far more than he had paid. His last winner was Rosalia at Ballarat in August 2024, when he was 88. Obituaries say it was her sixth win for him. His last runner was Nip at Kilmore on 6 March 2026, the start that the same reports place ten days before his 90th birthday. Michelle and Stevie lived nearby. He never left the Miners Rest house. Ballarat Turf Club chairman Bill Gribble called him the patriarch of one of Australian racing's most remarkable families. Morrison called him the doyen of a family that has greatly enriched Australian racing. Funeral arrangements were not made public in the reports published on the day he died. No official Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn or personal website homepage was found for him. No English Wikipedia article for Paddy Payne was found on 8 September 2026.