Malcolm Cox

As a boy, Malcolm Cox’s aspiration was to be a jockey, but his mum Mollie wasn’t at all keen about this plan – he had the stature for it, but the family’s connection to horse racing must have left a less than positive impression on Malcolm’s mother. Mollie’s father, George Dally, had been a horse trainer at Glenelg, in South Australia – Malcolm doesn’t know why mum steered him away from this lifestyle, but it was an era when you did what you were told without question and Mollie’s thoughts on the subject were perfectly clear … “No son of mine is going to be nursemaid to a horse!” It may well have been the memory of his early years that drove Malcolm to map out his future and the determination to work hard to achieve it. Malcolm’s father, Robert Cox, knew the meaning of hard yakka having worked in the Broken Hill mines from the age of just twelve. Then, as an adult he provided for his family – wife Mollie, son Malcolm and Malcolm’s seven siblings by running his rag, bag, and bottle rounds in Port Adelaide; collecting and reselling what others rejected.