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Enjoy our coverage of the lead-up to this year’s Melbourne Cup, from interviews with some of the industry’s biggest names to an interactive sweep.See all 10 stories.
If favourite Half Yours wins the Melbourne Cup, his jockey Jamie Melham will set a record that will never be broken.
She will become the first female to win the Caulfield Cup-Melbourne Cup double after becoming the first female jockey to win the Caulfield Cup a little over a fortnight ago.
Her name would sit easily with that title.
On Monday at a Melbourne Cup event including household names Chris Waller and Gai Waterhouse, it was Melham’s presence which stole the show. Within her diminutive jockey’s frame the enormity of her talent and courage was almost palpable as her eyes darted around the room.
Winning experience: Jamie Melham plants a kiss on the Caulfield Cup.Credit: Getty Images
Uncomfortable in the spotlight, her authenticity makes her a natural performer.
But as soon as the formalities were over she was off to begin her preparations for her fifth Melbourne Cup ride having already finished third twice in her four Cup rides. The most recent was on Okita Soushi in last year’s race having ridden Prince of Arran to third in her first ride in 2020.
The countdown is on for Jamie Melham.Credit: Getty Images
“I don’t like changing too much, my routines. I rode trackwork this morning and I try to keep everything as normal as I can. I’ll go to help [jockey husband] Ben at the gym later, have a sauna at night and do as much form as I can,” Melham said.
She is focused and disciplined, a necessary trait for someone as in demand as Melham has become as a record-breaking trailblazer who sets new marks for female jockeys as a matter of course. A breakthrough win on Tuesday on the five-year-old gelding would cement her position among the best jockeys of her era.
Jamie Melham heads out on Half Yours to win the Caulfield CupCredit: Getty Images
“The hardest part is everything else [about the race]. When you get legged on to the horse and go out to the gates, that’s the easiest part. Everything just sets back into your routine,” Melham said.
She has been comfortable on horses all her life, starting in showjumping before winning races at will (and three jockey premierships) in South Australia as Jamie Kah before moving to Melbourne in January 2019 aged 23 to ply her trade. Within two months she had won the Australian Cup on Flemington aboard the Ben Hayes-trained Harlem.
The daughter of speed skaters’ star rose quickly as she became the first jockey in Victoria – male or female – to ride 100 metropolitan winners in a season in 2021, bringing up the milestone on the Tony and Calvin McEvoy-trained Deep Speed, the trainers of Half Yours.
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Half Yours trainer Calvin McEvoy – whose father and co-trainer Tony McEvoy was as responsible as anyone for Melham’s early success – jokes that he accelerated the move to Victoria when he had a feisty exchange with Kah’s manager back in 2018.
His frustration at Kah choosing Victorian trainers’ horses rather than McEvoy’s got the better of him midway through the call when he yelled down the phone “why doesn’t she just move over there”.
She did, soon after.
A lot has happened since then including Kah’s marriage to Ben Melham, with the pair to become the first husband and wife combination to ride in the Melbourne Cup as Ben wastes to ride outsider Smokin’ Romans (coincidentally Jamie rode the same horse in the race in 2022).
“It’s very special we get to do this together, very special,” Kah said.
Jamie Melham and Ben Melham are often rivals on the racecourse.Credit: Getty Images
But the competitor is never far away. She revealed when pushed what she had actually said to her husband, who ride Johannes Vermeer to a close second to Rekindling in the 2017 Cup, in recent days.
“You can run a nice second, but I am winning,” she said.
Funnily enough, Celine Gaudray (Torranzino) and Ethan Brown (Middle Earth) are engaged and both riding in the race.
Any frustration the McEvoys felt at losing her to Victoria has long disappeared as she was the obvious choice on Half Yours in this Melbourne Cup preparation.
So far, everything has gone to plan in the four runs the noted mudlark Half Yours has had since winning the Caloundra Cup in July with his campaign starting at Randwick before he won the Naturalism Stakes, was fourth in the Turnbull Stakes then won the Caulfield Cup like he was the best horse in the race.
Drawing barrier four in the Cup will make Melham’s job that bit easier as she hopes to find a position and settle.
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“The horse is looking amazing and feeling amazing. I did some work on Tuesday with him. He will love this rain. I don’t like the rain too much, but he loves it,” Melham said. “I would just love to get as close to the rail as I can and put him to sleep early. I don’t think he will have any trouble running the trip…just give him a nice quiet ride.”
Until the 400-metre mark that is.
It’s at that point Melham hopes Half Yours can explode as he has throughout this spring, with Melham taking runs and pushing him to the line.
A win in the Cup is never guaranteed, but it seems inevitable for a jockey as good as Melham.
Half Yours is a great chance and Melham’s confidence shone when she was asked at the Call of the Card what it would mean to win the Cup: “I’ll tell you after three o’clock tomorrow.”
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