Jamie Melham makes history as second female Melbourne Cup winner
Jamie Melham has written her name into Australian racing history, becoming only the second woman to win the Melbourne Cup — ten years after her idol Michelle Payne shattered the sport’s glass ceiling.
Riding Half Yours, Melham surged to a dominant three-length victory at Flemington on Tuesday, completing a fairytale spring that also saw her take the AU$5 million Caulfield Cup just weeks ago. The win makes her the first female jockey to secure the rare Caulfield-Melbourne Cup double, achieved by only 13 horses in the 150-year history of Australia’s biggest races, News.Az reports, citing foreign media.
Melham’s emotional moment was made even more special as Payne was there to embrace her. Payne, who famously told racing critics to “get stuffed” after her own 2015 Cup triumph, congratulated the 29-year-old and told her, “The times are changing. It’s just unbelievable. Well done, what a ride.”
Laughing through tears, Melham replied, “I tried to copy your ride. Almost rode it as good as you.”
Her journey to the top has been anything but easy. Melham’s career has been shaped by resilience through devastating personal loss, including the death of a close friend in a 2014 race accident, a three-month suspension for breaching COVID-19 rules in 2021, and a life-threatening fall in 2023 that left her in a six-day coma. Yet she returned stronger, winning major races and now achieving horse racing’s most iconic crown.
Previously racing as Jamie Kah before her marriage earlier this year, Melham even rode past her husband, jockey Ben Melham, who finished 14th on Smokin’ Romans. The newlywed champion had promised to split the Cup prize money with him before the race — a personal footnote to a historic day.
Half Yours, the only locally bred horse in the 24-runner field, became a fan favourite among the 80,000-strong crowd. Co-trainer Calvin McEvoy celebrated the emotional moment, saying, “It shows we can do it. It’s still our race.”
Melham’s victory marks a defining chapter in Australian sport — a powerful symbol of perseverance and a new milestone for women in racing, ten years after Michelle Payne changed the course of history.
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