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Michelle Payne and Jamie Melham are the only two female jockeys to ride winners in the Melbourne Cup.Credit: Getty Images
“Welcome to the club,” Payne said before embracing her on the Channel Nine set.
Among the 84,374 toasting Melham was Joe Pearson, to whom Melham made a beeline in the crowd as she walked a lap of honour of the mounting yard. Pearson and Melham went through riding school together in their early teens. He stopped riding a few years later. They still keep in touch.
“I wish I could say my horse profession went as far as hers did,” Pearson said with a laugh.
The first Tuesday in November is when most Australians get their annual dose of what they call the sport of kings. What they do not see are the early mornings riding trackwork in the dark, the battles against weight while still maintaining the strength to control a half-tonne animal, and the constant threat of danger.
Blake Shinn’s fall in the ninth race was a reminder a jockey is only ever a stride away from falling.
“Mum and Dad have brought out the tears again, I’d just stopped crying,” Melham said.
“This is what we wake up at stupid o’clock for every morning to come to these big days and win in front of the world.
“It looks like an amazing, glamorous industry on the outside, and it’s got its good parts, but god, there’s some tough parts, some really tough parts. This is why we do it, for days like this, to go down in history, winning the Melbourne Cup. What the hell just happened?”
As the only Australian-bred horse in the field, Half Yours was the sentimental favourite for many. Not as well known was untold story of emotional anguish behind Melham’s triumph.
Melham’s grandfather died last week. His funeral will be on Thursday. She won’t be there. Her Pa said he would rather she ride winners for him at Flemington’s Oaks Day meeting instead.
“The last thing he watched was the Caulfield Cup, but he was such a big supporter of mine,” Melham said. “He was up there opening those gaps for me because I needed a few gaps opened.”
She had other heavenly help. Half Yours was bred by the late Col McKenna, Warrnambool’s meat processing giant and a prominent racehorse owner.
McKenna was one of Melham’s biggest backers. At the carnival last year, she wore McKenna’s famous lime and blue silks to group 1 victory on Another Wil just days after his sudden death. She and Payne led a horseback procession at his funeral.
On Tuesday morning, a niece of McKenna’s gave her a broach in the colours that McKenna wore to every race meeting.
“He was with me,” Melham said.
Then there are the McEvoys. When Melham was coming through the ranks in Adelaide, she and Tony McEvoy, the older man in the father-son training partnership he runs with Calvin, were a force in South Australian racing.
“They have been an incredible part of my career,” Melham said. “My first ever Flemington [winner] was on Dollar For Dollar for them, and now I have won a Melbourne Cup for them.”
Melham soaks up the enormity of her achievement.Credit: Justin McManus
Melham could easily have been sharing the moment with trainer Ciaron Maher, who handled many of McKenna’s gallopers.
After McKenna’s death, his family sold many of his horses. Half Yours sold for $305,000 at an online sale last November.
The son of unfashionable Irish sire St Jean was the subject of a bidding war between the McEvoys and the Maher stable. The McEvoys thought they were home at $150,000 but with 12 seconds left another bid came in.
“The next 45 minutes it was back and forth,” the McEvoys’ racing manager Rayan Moore said. “At 305 (thousand) that’s the best bid we’ve ever put in for a horse.
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“He can be a weight-for-age star, he’s a genetic freak.”
Owner Neville Smith paid about $80,000 for a 25 per cent share. It was well worth the thrill he had holding aloft the three-handled cup in the manner of a premiership captain.
“I’m a Tigers supporter,” Smith said. “They’ve won three flags for me recently, but nothing beats this.”
Maher was magnanimous in defeat. In an ideal world, he would have been training Half Yours for McKenna on Tuesday. He had to settle for third with Middle Earth, a $26 roughie who ran the race of his life. Such are the swings and roundabouts of racing.
“We’ve got horses off other trainers that have gone on to be elite racehorses,” Maher said. “Racing’s a beautiful thing. Well done to them, it’s fantastic for Jamie.”
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