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SARGA.CO – The Melbourne Cup horse racing event made history this week, as a female jockey etched her name into Australia’s equestrian legacy — becoming only the second woman ever to win the nation’s most prestigious horse racing title.
Her name is Jamie Melham, now officially recorded as the second female jockey to triumph in the Melbourne Cup.
Melham’s achievement places her alongside Michelle Payne, the first woman to claim the Melbourne Cup trophy a decade ago.
Riding Half Yours on Tuesday, November 4, 2025, Melham crossed the finish line first at the Flemington racecourse, joining Payne in an “exclusive club” that, to this day, has only two members.
Half Yours was the only locally bred horse among the 24 competitors — a fact that made it a crowd favorite among the 80,000 spectators in attendance.
“This shows that we can still do it. It’s still our race, but it’s become much harder to win with an Australian-bred horse,” said trainer Calvin McEvoy, as quoted by Independent.co.uk.
Melham’s three-length victory over runner-up Goodie Two Shoes came just weeks after she won the Caulfield Cup, a race with a total prize of AUD 5 million, riding the same five-year-old stallion trained by her father, Tony, and Calvin McEvoy.
Compared to her predecessor, Payne, Melham even achieved something unprecedented — becoming the first female jockey ever to win both the Caulfield Cup and the Melbourne Cup in the same season.
“Times have changed,” Payne said to Melham, who was in tears.
“It’s unbelievable. Congratulations — what an incredible race.”
Melham’s journey to becoming a female jockey at the top of Australian horse racing has been anything but easy. It was filled with injuries, trauma, and setbacks.
During her career, she witnessed one of her closest friends die in a racing accident in 2014.
She was also suspended for three months in 2021 for breaching COVID-19 protocols.
In 2023, Melham nearly lost her life after a serious fall at the Flemington racecourse left her in a coma for six days.
And in an unforgettable incident, she was headbutted by a horse just before winning the Victoria Derby last year.
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