Jamie Melham has produced the ride of her life on Half Yours to win the $10 million Melbourne Cup at Flemington, making history in the process.<\/p>\n
Melham’s win made her the first female jockey to win both the Melbourne and Caulfield Cups, to go with her win on Half Yours last month.<\/p>\n
It was the latest chapter in a fascinating, high-profile career for the star jockey.<\/p>\n
On the 10th anniversary of Michelle Payne’s historic Melbourne Cup win on Prince of Penzance, Melham held Half Yours in midfield before making her move in the famous finishing straight.<\/p>\n
Ireland’s Goodie Two Shoes \u2014 trained by Joseph O’Brien \u2014 hit the front with the Ciaron Maher-trained Middle Earth coming down the outside.<\/p>\n
But Melham got the perfect inside run one out from the fence to burst through and take the lead inside the clocktower.<\/p>\n
She rode Half Yours clear to win by two and three-quarter lengths, from Goodie Two Shoes with Middle Earth third.<\/p>\n
An emotional Melham revealed that her grandfather had died in the week before the race.<\/p>\n
“I have to mention my grandpa. He died last week. The last race was the Caulfield Cup. And he was such a big supporter of mine,” Melham told Nine.<\/p>\n
“So he’s up there opening those gaps for me because I needed a few gaps open then, and my mum and dad are here.”<\/p>\n
Melham also spoke of the ups and downs of the racing life that had led her to Flemington glory.<\/p>\n
“This is why we get up every morning, 4am, work our arses off,” she said.<\/p>\n
“This industry. It’s tough. It’s not all glorious and perfect. As everyone can see sometimes.<\/p>\n
“I’ve had an amazing year. Got married, had some really great days on the track, but nothing ever, ever compares to this feeling right now I’m feeling.”<\/p>\n
Melham had previously finished second twice on Prince of Arran (2020) and Okita Soushi (2024).<\/p>\n
Half Yours was trained by the first father-son team to win the Cup, Tony and Calvin McEvoy.<\/p>\n
The winning horse was bred by Melham’s mentors Janice and Col McKenna. Col McKenna died last year, and Half Yours was subsequently sold to the McEvoys.<\/p>\n
“Look, I’ve got Col up there, and he and Janice bred this horse, [they’ve] done an incredible job with him.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jamie Melham has produced the ride of her life on Half Yours to win the $10 million Melbourne…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":354284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[173048,4740,173051,173047,173046,173049,173050,173045,50,6180,1926,83020],"class_list":{"0":"post-354283","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-al-riffa","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-caulfield-cup","11":"tag-favourite","12":"tag-flemington","13":"tag-half-yours","14":"tag-jamie-melham","15":"tag-melbourne-cup","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-racing","18":"tag-sport","19":"tag-winner"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115489781301537440","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}