A decade after Michelle Payne became a household name in Australia as the first female rider to win the Melbourne Cup, Jamie Melham followed in her footsteps on Saturday by becoming the first woman to land the Caulfield Cup aboard Half Yours.
While Payne’s Melbourne Cup winner Prince Of Penzance was a 100/1 outsider and the rider’s shock milestone was the main story, even leading to a big budget film adaptation, Melham’s triumph was different. Half Yours was a hot favourite and Melham’s victory was widely anticipated; she was under immense pressure and she produced a brilliant, measured ride on Tony and Calvin McEvoy’s stayer.
Melham being the first female to win the race – run for the 149th time on Saturday – was a storyline but it wasn’t at the heart of the plot. And while it might have been Melham’s biggest victory, it was her 18th Group 1 win and just the latest chapter in a stellar career in which the 29-year old has won three South Australian premierships, a Melbourne championship and won features on horses like Voyage Bubble, Nature Strip, Zaaki and Broadsiding.
Racing is one of the only sports where men and women compete against each other on an even playing field (for the most part – both France and Japan offer an allowance to female riders). However, for most of the sport’s history, the weighing room has primarily been the domain of men.
The tide is slowly turning, though.
In Australia, almost 80 per cent of the 250 apprentice jockeys across the country are women – inspired by women like Payne, Melham, Rachel King, Angela Jones, Clare Lindop, Kathy O’Hara and Linda Meech among many others.
In New Zealand, which has long been ahead of the game, there is an even split between men and women among apprentices.
While the rest of the world may not be at those levels – Ireland at 32 per cent, Great Britain at 31 per cent, South Africa at 15 per cent – women are making inroads at rapid rates. Stars like Rachael Blackmore over jumps and flat riders Hollie Doyle, Hayley Turner and Rachel Venniker are trailblazers.
The next frontier is Asia, which is still behind the times in terms of producing future female stars but which looms as the next arena for women to match their male counterparts.
Earlier this year, King became the first woman to ride an international Group 1 winner on the JRA circuit when she partnered Costa Nova to victory in the February Stakes.
That came a year after Saffie Osborne’s milestone success at Meydan in Dubai, while Osborne was just denied the opportunity to become the first woman to win on Dubai World Cup night when her father’s Heart Of Honor was beaten by a nose in the G2 UAE Derby.
Meanwhile Doyle is set to try her hand in Hong Kong from November 5 after numerous summers in Japan. Doyle will be just the second expat woman to join Hong Kong’s riding ranks on a short-term contract; the first, Canadian jockey Emma-Jayne Wilson, rode for two months almost 18 years ago.
In the last 10 years, only apprentice jockeys Britney Wong and Kei Chiong have represented women in Hong Kong beyond fly-in-fly-out visitors.
The future of the racing industry runs through Asia and it is important that female success in the region becomes commonplace. While racing is ultimately a meritocracy, riders like Melham have proven that women can hold their own. ∎
