Banned jockey Noel Callow has appealed the severity of a 10-month racing suspension for filming and distributing on social media his abuse of several Aboriginal people on Darwin's CBD streets.
Callow did plead guilty to two counts of "conduct detrimental to the interests of racing", but the 50-year-old walked out of the Racing Queensland's hearing stunned over the length of the ban.
The video taken on his mobile phone ridiculing the First Nations community was filled with "racially-charged" language, racing stewards said.
The two separate incidents occurred at night and day in July 2024 during that year's Darwin Cup carnival, but only came to light more than 12 months later.
The rules which guide all sanctioned thoroughbred racing throughout Australia states that a person in the industry "must not engage in a conduct prejudicial to the image, interests, integrity, or the welfare of racing, whether or not that conduct takes place within a racecourse or elsewhere".
Callow's legal counsel, headed by barrister Matthew Sterling, already argued amid last month's hearing that a ban should be more in line with the standards handed out in either the AFL or the NRL competitions of around four to six weeks for either charge rather than five months each.
Sterling had previously told the panel of three racing stewards that there was "no reason racing should treat such matters more harshly than other sports".
But the report from Queensland Racing Integrity Commission's stewards stated "the submission that a four-to-six-week suspension, as typically applied in AFL for racist or offensive remarks as an appropriate penalty overlooks a critical distinction – in those cases, the remarks were made during play or in private settings, and not self-recorded, published, or circulated".
Part of Callow's new defence to request a reduced sentence on Friday was his public revelation that the Queenslander is repentant of his behaviour and has been left quite "embarrassed", according to Sterling.
The 50-year-old rider said a 90-minute online course on Indigenous culture and a chat with former Sydney Swans star Michael O'Loughlin, a Kaurna and Ngarrindjeri man, has made Callow realise he has been "disrespectful" to Aboriginal culture.
Callow also admitted that he has been operating as a functioning alcoholic prior to picking a fight with rival jockey Kyle Wilson-Taylor earlier this year inside the Doomben jockeys' room in Brisbane that earned him a three-month ban.
The multiple group-1 winner had appeared to be intoxicated in at least one of the two videos that he shared through WhatsApp with racing associates.
Callow's suspension came after recording an Aboriginal man while walking, eating and offering the man a bite of pizza - if the man agreed to shower.
He was also given another five months after riding a bicycle on a footpath, holding a jockey whip on the handlebars while nearly crashing into three Aboriginal pedestrians and firing off a racist four-letter slur in return.
Sterling had said Callow's offensive remarks "were intended as misplaced humour, not deliberately cruel".
The Queensland Racing appeals panel is said to be taking his extenuating circumstances into consideration before they return this month with their final decision.
Should Callow lose his final appeal, he will not return to a track in Australia until the end of April 2026.
Stewards provisionally suspended Callow's licence for three months after laying the charges down immediately – pending the outcome of the inquiry – after his last race on July 29 in a third-place finish on Hills Minto over 1000 metres at Doomben.
He missed the ride on Bear Story at this year's $200,000 Darwin Cup (2050m), consequently the horse coming last in the field on a replacement jockey.
Callow had ridden the same eight-year-old gelding in the 2024 Darwin Cup to a third place.
