Jamie Melham has damaged new floor as the primary feminine jockey to win the Caulfield Cup (2,400 metres) in its 149-year historical past, steering favorite Half Yours to victory within the $5 million handicap.
Skilled by father-and-son duo Tony and Calvin McEvoy, Half Yours beat residence River Of Stars in emphatic vogue.
5-year-old Half Yours — the son of bargain-priced sire St Jean — gave Melham her seventeenth Group 1 triumph and first in one of many Melbourne spring majors.
Valiant King was third residence and Presage Nocturne was fourth, whereas Adelaide River pale after main by as a lot as seven lengths.
Melham, one in every of Australia’s main jockeys, was in tears after the race.
“Simply listening to you say ‘Caulfield Cup’ goes to make me cry,” Melham stated.
“I’ve had an unimaginable profession and ridden 17 Group 1s now, however that main has clearly eluded me.
“I simply wished to get one, however now I need possibly three extra, possibly a Melbourne Cup, and this horse goes to run the journey out.”
Jamie Melham is the primary feminine jockey to win the Caulfield Cup. (AAP: James Ross)
Melham stated she was not distracted by the very fact Half Yours entered the race as favorite.
“I simply wished to come back out right here and journey him and provides him the very best journey I may as a result of I knew he was the very best horse within the race,” she stated.
“However the whole lot was good. It labored out completely for him and he needed to dig deep and he is an absolute celebrity horse.
“What Tony and Calvin have completed with him, they’ve simply made this absolute skilled of a horse.”
Half Yours was offered final November for $305,000 at a time when he had given little indication he would develop right into a star.
However the McEvoys noticed potential and have been rewarded handsomely.
Tony McEvoy got here agonisingly near successful the Caulfield Cup in 2002 with Fields Of Omagh, narrowly crushed by Northerly.
Melham had additionally fallen brief in three earlier rides, together with a fourth aboard Prince Of Arran in 2020.
“For this reason we do it, to have a runner in these, they usually’re bloody arduous to win,” Tony McEovy stated.
“That was unimaginable.”
It was the largest win of Calvin McEvoy’s younger coaching profession.
“What a proud second for me, to have the ability to do it with Calv,” Tony McEvoy stated.
“It is actually gratifying.”
Earlier on Saturday, Blake Shinn guided Ole Dancer to victory within the Group 1 Thousand Guineas (1,600m) for Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman.
Ole Dancer overhauled odds-on favorite Apocalyptic in an exciting end, leaving jockey Mark Zahra runner-up within the traditional for the fifth time.
“It was an thrilling race, an exciting race for me to even journey in,” Shinn stated.
“Peter and Kat, you’ll be able to simply belief their horse’s health, and when the strain got here on, she got here to the fore. It was a fantastic effort.”
AAP
