Jamie Melham has revealed she almost yelled out to husband Ben to get him to move out of the way as she mowed down her rivals on Half Yours to win the Melbourne Cup. And the horse racing world is marvelling over footage of her historic ride shown from above.
Melham became just the second female jockey to win the famous race, emulating good friend Michelle Payne. The 29-year-old is the toast of the horse racing world, with pundits in awe at how she handled the ride on Half Yours on Tuesday.
Channel 9 has released footage from above that shows how good Melham and Half Yours were. Heading into the final straight she still had plenty of work to do, and Melham had to get past husband Ben on her charge to the front.
Jamie Melham had to navigate past husband Ben on her way to winning the Melbourne Cup. Image: Getty/Channel 9
There were no less than 10 horses in front of Half Yours when Melham made her charge, and the footage shows she surged through some half-gaps that weren’t really there. She squeezed up the inside in a fearless move that left Francesca Cumani stunned on the coverage.
“There is no gap, that’s not a gap,” Cumani exclaimed. Nine colleague David Gately said: “He’s just such a push-button horse, he puts himself into a race, switches off, takes narrow gaps as you’ve seen and has an explosive turn of foot.
“She [Melham] cuts back to the inside and really had two choices – one to hook and one to play for a bit of luck inside. With the horse outside her going nowhere, she had to take that narrow gap. That’s what good horses do, they kick into gaps and they are rarely held up. It takes a brave rider and a brave horse who can change up speed as well.”
Jamie Melham and Half Yours shot through a number of gaps that weren’t really there. Image: Channel 9
One person wrote on social media: “She had the horse under her sure….But they aren’t big gaps! Too good Jamie.” Another person wrote: “Hell of a ride Jamie Melham. What a horse.”
Melham’s bravery was particularly noteworthy considering past incidents. She was hospitalised in 2023 and placed in a medically-induced coma after a racing incident in which her horse clipped heels with another.
How husband’s advice helped Jamie Melham win
Speaking after the race, the triumphant jockey revealed how she even had to navigate her husband getting in the way on Smokin’ Romans. Although she admitted some words of advice from Ben paved the way for her victory.
“There was a gap this big next to him [Ben] and I was going to yell at him, but my horse was just going too good anyway,” she told the Sydney Morning Herald. “He pulled me through the next gap, [then] pulled me through the next gap where there was barely any room. My horse was just going too good.
“I said (to Ben), ‘I rode it how you told me, too’. We don’t normally talk racing much, but we went through this race about 10-15 times yesterday and that’s exactly what I wanted to happen. Ben told me, ‘let that first wave go’ – that’s exactly what I did.”
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Ultimately Melham said it was the class of Half Yours that secured the win. “It’s all the horse. What an absolute tough, legend of a horse,” she said.
“You need the horse underneath you to do that for you and the gaps were small, but the horse didn’t for a second hesitate. That’s the sort of horse you need in these races.”