17/04/2026
Dad Riding In Warwick..
R.I.P Lindsay Black
Springsure Central Queensland
Lindsay was interviewed on the 23 September, 2010. - By Alice Roberts
Ba****ck Instincts........
In an era when racism was prevalent, and Indigenous Australians weren't offered much of a chance, one young man decided to defy the odds.......Springsure local Lindsay Black was bullied as a youngster but went on to become the first Aboriginal to win the World Buck Jumping Championships.
Today at the age of 80, Lindsay has emphysema from farm chemicals he was exposed to as a drover and jackaroo.
As he's interviewed, Lindsey's grandchildren sneak up to sit and listen to their grandfather speak of his young days.
But he says he's still not old yet.
"I'm 80 year old, only a chicken," he laughs.
Born and bred in Springsure, he says it wasn't always easy.
"When I went to school, it was fairly racist, you know there was not one day of my life when I went to school that I didn't get the cuts from fighting, same with my other brothers," says Lindsay.
He says his skill for riding bare back developed as a youngster when he and his brothers would help a local dairy farmer muster cattle on horse back.
"We had an old bay mare, he wouldn't let us ride her with a saddle, we had to ride her ba****ck and that's where we got all our balance from," says Lindsay.
"We were pretty smart, we could jump off our horses and land on our feet."
But his love of horses was instilled in him from an early age.
Both his parents were avid horse people and competed at local events.
"At about 14 I started riding big jumpers," he says.
"We had a taffy pony and we used to pinch him on the back and they'd buck with us, kick up and run away."
Lindsay still remembers his first time competing in a rodeo on a horse from Planet Downs.
He says he rode the horse for the full ten seconds.
"In 1949 I worked at Mansion Downs and we went down to Rockhampton for the Australian Championships and I nominated in the buck jumping and the bullock ride," says Lindsay.
"Didn't get no where but then I got a feeling for it and I come back and went away with Dad droving."
In 1950 he returned to Springsure for the local rodeo and came second in the bullock ride.
As he sits out the front of his house in Springsure, Lindsay flicks through photographs of buck jumps and bullock rides past.
"I won the Queensland Championships on this horse in 1956 at Longreach," he says, pointing at a photo of a young Lindsey.
He says the trick to buck jumping is to go with your instincts.
"You know what your ability is and from the first two or three bucks out of the shoot you know the feel of the horse and you throw yourself straight into it," says Lindsay.
"But if it's a good tough horse, you'll ride the horse, you know instincts tell you what to do.
"You ride on the balance of your feet and your bucking rein."
He says there were a few near misses, and one in particular has never left his mind.
"I went to Gympie Rodeo one year and I come out on a grey horse they call Jenny Spin and they had a big rep on him," he says.
"And I drew this Jenny Spin and he was like this horse here, " he says, pointing at the photograph.
"And I felt him and he was going, and I was going at him and he kicked up, he come up from behind and his legs went out from behind him and he come straight down on top of me.
"To this day I don't know how I come out of it. - Interview sourced from - http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2010/09/23/3019952.htm
