Who is Jamie Melham? A lookback at the rollercoaster career of a rider making history in Australia

Jamie Melham enjoyed her biggest success on Half Yours in the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday. Here we take a look back at the ups and downs of her career . . .

• There was the Covid scandal and an induced coma but Jamie Melham can now be remembered first and foremost as a Melbourne Cup winner 

The early days

Jamie Melham has sporting genes, with her father and mother, John and Karen Kah, representing Australia as speed skaters at the 1992 Winter Olympics.

She left school at 15 to pursue a career in racing and began her apprenticeship in 2011, winning the Adelaide jockeys’ premiership in her first full season in 2012-13. She went on to win the premiership three times, and then at the age of 23 made a permanent move to Melbourne.

Gatting: a 100-1 Group 1 winner for Jamie Melham in 2019Credit: Kelly Defina (Getty Images)

Melham made an instant impact in Victoria, sealing a first Group 1 on the David Hayes and Tom Dabernig-trained Harlem in the Australian Cup at Flemington in 2019.

She continued her rise to prominence with a second top-level success in the same year when landing the Makybe Diva Stakes at the same track aboard the Darren McAuliffe-trained 100-1 shot Gatting. Melham also rode in Britain for the first time at the Shergar Cup.

An up-and-down year

The rider experienced some of the best and most challenging moments of her career in 2021.

She rode a landmark 1,000th winner at Pakenham in May, describing it as “pretty cool” and an “unbelievable” achievement in her ninth year riding.

Melham went on to be crowned the champion metropolitan rider in Melbourne after riding a record 105 winners, becoming the first jockey to ride 100-plus winners in a campaign.

Jamie Melham: broke a Melbourne metropolitan record in 2019 and rode at the Shergar CupCredit: Alan Crowhurst (Getty Images)

She was forced to miss the spring carnival, though, after being suspended for three months for breaching Covid-19 regulations.

She was one of four jockeys involved in a party that flouted lockdown rules, with the riders fined A$5,452 (£2,711/€3,081) each. She posted a statement on X expressing “deep embarrassment and disappointment in herself”.

Melham was back race-riding in December and won the valuable All-Star Mile on Zaaki for Annabel Neasham at Flemington the following March.

Induced coma after horror fall

More Group 1 wins followed on Zaaki and the Ciaron Maher and David Eustace-trained Coolangatta, but Melham was back on the sidelines following an awful fall at Flemington in March 2023 that caused bleeding to the brain and left her in an induced coma for five days.

It took five months before she was back in competitive action, such was the severity of her injuries, and not before hitting the headlines once again away from the track.

Racing Victoria stewards charged Melham with conduct prejudicial to racing after images were circulated on social media of the rider and groom Ruby McIntyre next to what appeared to be a plate of white powder, but the rider was later found not guilty by a tribunal and the charges were unanimously dismissed.

Back among the best

Melham has let her riding do the talking in the last two years and her career has gone from strength to strength.

She rode six Group 1 winners in 2024, including first victories in the South Australian Derby, Victorian Derby, Australian Guineas and Newmarket Handicap, and married her jockey-partner Ben Melham at the start of this year.

Jamie Melham shares a special moment with Half Yours' trainers Calvin (left) and Tony McEvoyCredit: George Sal (Racing Photos)

Her association with Half Yours has made it a spring carnival to remember, with Melham becoming the first female rider to win the Caulfield Cup last month and making more history at Flemington on Tuesday, after which she reiterated why she became a jockey.

Melham, 29, said: “Mum put up with me since I was a little kid with ponies and that’s why I do this. In what sort of job can you be with your favourite animal in the world, 24/7 every day of the week? I just wanted to jump off Half Yours, not talk to anyone and give him a big hug.”

Read more on the Melbourne Cup . . .

There was the Covid scandal and an induced coma but Jamie Melham can now be remembered first and foremost as a Melbourne Cup winner 

'Nothing compares to this feeling' - Jamie Melham seals historic Caulfield Cup-Melbourne Cup double on Half Yours  

'It was a huge thrill for the McManus family' - Joseph O'Brien reacts to Melbourne Cup runner-up effort of Goodie Two Shoes 

Sign up to receive On The Nose, our essential daily newsletter, from the Racing Post. Your unmissable morning feed, direct to your email inbox every morning.