{"id":884608,"date":"2026-09-08T16:04:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T16:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/884608\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T16:04:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T16:04:20","slug":"legendary-horseman-paddy-payne-sr-dies-aged-90","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/884608\/","title":{"rendered":"Legendary horseman Paddy Payne Sr dies aged 90"},"content":{"rendered":"

Legendary horseman and patriarch of the famous Australian racing family, Paddy Payne Sr, has died aged 90.<\/p>\n

He was father of Michelle Payne, the first woman to win the Melbourne Cup, and husband to late Mary Payne, whom he had 10 children with.<\/p>\n

Daughter Michelle took to social media to pay a tribute to her father, saying “RIP Dad. You finally get to go and see Mum again”.<\/p>\n

\"Paddy,<\/p>\n

Paddy Payne (left) with daughter Michelle (centre) and son Stevie (right). (ABC Ballarat: Dominic Cansdale)<\/p>\n

Racing Victoria issued a statement acknowledging the passing of the “legendary Ballarat horseman”.<\/p>\n

“Paddy was the patriarch of the Payne family as they established themselves as one of the most famous surnames in Australian racing,” the statement continued.<\/p>\n

Racing Victoria Chief Executive Aaron Morrison said “Paddy was the doyen of a family that has greatly enriched Australian racing and provided us with so many great memories”.<\/p>\n

“Whilst Paddy has passed, his contribution to the sport will not be forgotten and his legacy will live on.”<\/p>\n

Eight of Payne’s 10 children became professional jockeys.<\/p>\n

Daughter Michelle enjoyed multiple Group One triumphs, including her trailblazing 2015 Melbourne Cup win.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Michelle Payne’s father never doubted her<\/a><\/p>\n

Paddy Payne said unlike many punters he thought Prince Of Penzance had a good chance of winning Australian racing’s biggest prize.<\/p>\n

Son Patrick also achieved great success in Group One racing, both as a jockey and a trainer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paddy Payne was immortalised in a film about Michelle’s Melbourne Cup victory titled Ride Like a Girl, where he was played by the late Sam Neill.<\/p>\n

Payne’s wife Mary died in a car accident in 1986, leaving him to raise their children when Michelle was just six months old.<\/p>\n

Later in life, two of his daughters died \u2014 Brigid in 2007 and Bernadette in 2025 \u2014 both were jockeys.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the ABC in 2015<\/a>, Payne said: “We’ve had some good success and some bad luck as well.”<\/p>\n

“We’re a close family and we get on good and my kids get on good, it’s lovely for me to see that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Legendary horseman and patriarch of the famous Australian racing family, Paddy Payne Sr, has died aged 90. He…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":884609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,10851,105297,23237,153199,84818,153326,454446,153757,85],"class_list":["post-884608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dead","tag-died","tag-horse-racing","tag-jockey","tag-melbourne-cup","tag-michelle-payne","tag-paddy-payne","tag-racing-victoria","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=884608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/884609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=884608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=884608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=884608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}