Jamie Melham ... the Cups Queen

When Jamie Melham streaked across the finishing line and won the 2025 Lexus Melbourne Cup, there were a couple of things on her mind. Her thoughts turned to her beloved grandfather, Albert, who’d died only a week earlier – but not before watching his determined granddaughter win the prestigious Caulfield Cup.

As Jamie weaved her way through the pack on Lexus Melbourne Cup Day in November 2025, she felt that Albert was providing some divine intervention.

“He was such a big supporter of mine. He was up there opening those gaps for me, because I needed a few gaps opened,” she said shortly after becoming the first female jockey to win the Caulfield-Melbourne Cup double.

Jamie’s other thoughts were for Half Yours – the Tony and Calvin McEvoy-trained horse that had carried her to glory during both big races.

“He’s a legend of a horse and he gave me the most incredible ride. He has the best attitude. I just wanted to jump off, not talk to anyone and give him a hug! What a champion,” she said.

And when she looked back at the field in those final strides, the magnitude of what she’d done hit her all at once. “I just remember those last two strides – looking back and thinking, we just beat that whole field, beat everyone in Australia, pretty much. This is the best race in Australia, in my opinion. And I thought, well, I’ve actually done this.”

Jamie’s triumph during the 2025 Spring Racing carnival was built on years of hard-earned success. Since the girl from the Adelaide Hills first sat in the saddle of her beloved pony, Bessie, she’s had an affinity with horses.

“I grew up on horses. At 18 months old, Mum would lead me around on a miniature pony while my friend from daycare was pushed along in a pram,” said Jamie. Formerly Jamie Kah, she married fellow jockey, Ben Melham, in January 2025.

Jamie’s equestrian career began when she joined One Tree Hill Pony Club and Mount Pleasant Pony Club and began showjumping. In 2010, at the age of 14, she was selected for the Pony Club Australia International Mounted Games team and travelled to the UK to compete. She won a series of national and international titles with Bessie.

“A lot of people go right into being a jockey, but I think my equestrian background has had a big influence on my riding style,” she said. Those mounted games, in particular, sharpened an instinct she still draws on today. “Every [mounted] race, you’d have to switch onto a different horse – you didn’t get any time to get to know them, you just swung on and had to go and race. I think I just got really used to jumping on any horse and getting a feel for them in the first two or three seconds. And that’s what you do in race riding.”

When she was 14, Jamie’s future began to fall into place when she got a parttime job at the stables of trainer John MacMillan. By the age of 15, she knew her future lay with horses – specifically, the racing industry.

“I had my first gallop at Gawler racetrack one morning and the adrenalin rush was amazing. I’d never experienced anything like it. I was hooked. Mum and Dad were a bit concerned but they’ve always been by my side,” she said.

Jamie convinced her parents, John and Karen, to let her leave school to start a jockey apprenticeship and they understood her passion and yearning to follow her dream. The couple are former speed skaters who chased their own dreams when they represented Australia at the 1992 Winter Olympics in the French Alps.

During the first six months of her apprenticeship, Jamie rode 40 winners. In her first full season in 2012/13, she won the Adelaide Jockeys’ Premiership – the first apprentice to do so in almost 20 years.

By her 18th birthday, Jamie was celebrating 163 wins, and she won the Adelaide Jockeys’ Premiership another three times before a move to Melbourne in 2019.

It was also in 2019 that she first rode in the Lexus Melbourne Cup, aboard Prince Of Arran. She didn’t win – but it left a mark. “Just to make it to the race was the most special thing. I crossed the line and just saw all the people in the big marquees, and it felt like I’d won the Melbourne Cup, the way the crowd cheered. That was the most incredible feeling – until, obviously, winning it.”

Her winning streak continued. She became the first jockey – male or female – to ride 100 winners in a single Melbourne Metropolitan season when she ended the 2020/21 season with 105 first places. “That was probably one of my real favourite moments I’ve ticked off,” she said.

In April 2021, Jamie also won the $3 million Group 1 Doncaster Mile at Randwick on Cascadian and became the first female rider anywhere in the world to clinch a Group 1 win for Godolphin. That year she became the only female to rank in the Thoroughbred Racing Commentary’s top 100 jockeys globally.

The wins kept coming – but so did the challenges that tested Jamie’s mettle and showcased her resilience and dedication to her profession.

In September 2021, Jamie was suspended by the Victorian Racing Tribunal for breaching strict COVID-19 lockdown rules during a gathering at an Airbnb rental on the Mornington Peninsula. Racing Victoria officials claimed she gave them misleading information about the incident and she was initially suspended for five months.

Jamie appealed and the ban was reduced to three months. Her focus was on ‘moving forward’ and getting back to doing what she loved.

In March 2023, Jamie faced a much tougher and potentially career-ending battle when she had a severe fall at Flemington. She tumbled from her mount, Flyball, during the Sires’ Produce Stakes and was left with bleeding to the brain and several breaks to her body.

Doctors at the Royal Melbourne Hospital placed Jamie in an induced coma for five days while family and friends anxiously awaited her recovery. Jamie was left with no recollection of the accident but five months later, she was back in the saddle and it wasn’t long before she was back in the winner’s circle, too. It was the horses themselves, she says, that carried her through the darkest days of her recovery. “After my fall, the horses got me through. I used to just go out there and sit next to my horse all day – it makes you feel safe. It’s so amazing that I get to do this every single day and call it a job.”

Before her fall, Jamie was due to ride In Secret in the Group 1 Newmarket Handicap. She was replaced by Dean Holland who won the race and paid tribute to Jamie and her courage. Tragically, a month later, Dean himself had a fatal fall at Donald racecourse in Victoria.

In 2024, Jamie returned to win that Group 1 race on Cylinder and honoured Dean’s memory.

“This is for Dean Holland. I couldn’t imagine anyone riding that horse as well as he did last year and hopefully, he is watching down on us today. He was just an amazing person and it just makes me appreciate being here,” she said.She speaks similarly of close friend Col McKenna, who passed away before seeing Jamie reach the heights of her career. She carried his badge on her vest during the Lexus Melbourne Cup.

“I absolutely believe there are a few people out there looking after me, and Col’s one of them. Gaps have come for me on the track that probably shouldn’t have – I think he’s got something to do with that.”

The Caulfield Cup win, she says, was the moment the nerves truly settled. “After he won that, I just felt like, OK, I’ve ticked off a major. The pressure sort of lifted off my shoulders.” By Melbourne Cup morning, she was remarkably calm – motivated, in part, by those who doubted Half Yours’s ability to stay the trip. “I like when people – and experts and scientists – doubt you, because you go, alright, sweet, I’m going to prove them wrong. I was in a very good state of mind that day.”

Husband, Ben, was one of her Lexus Melbourne Cup competitors, finishing 14th on Smokin’ Romans, and they also made history as the first married couple to compete against each other in the big race. The two had planned out their rides together that morning and for once, the plan played out almost perfectly. “Races don’t normally go how you expect them to be run, and that race was just absolutely perfect – exactly how we’d spoken about it.” There was even a funny moment mid-race, when Jamie drew alongside Ben and, without quite realising it, said to him: “It’s OK honey, it’s just me.” She laughs at the recollection. “Normally I’m screaming and yelling at him, so I must have been feeling nice at that time.”

As well as Ben and her family, the first Australian woman to win the Melbourne Cup, Michelle Payne, was quick to congratulate Jamie on her success. Michelle romped home on Prince Of Penzance in 2015, paving the way for talented female jockeys like Jamie.

"I've got tears in my eyes," Payne said on Nine after the race.

"She has revolutionised racing and she is so beautiful to watch."

By the end of May 2026, Jamie had 1,377 wins, including 20 Group 1 wins, and had earned over AU$114 million in prizemoney.

Her passion for riding and for horses shows no signs of ebbing away and when Jamie isn’t on the track, she’s an advocate for giving retired racehorses a second lease of life. She has taken a series of former racehorses and trained them to be showjumpers, including Dollar for Dollar whom Jamie rode throughout the thoroughbred’s career.

She put her hand up to buy him when his track career came to an end.

“I genuinely love horses and am excited to showcase the athleticism that thoroughbreds are capable of,” she said.

As esteemed female jockeys, like Linda Meech, Pam O’Neill, Michelle Payne and Clare Lindop, inspired the young girl from South Australia, Jamie hopes her hard work and success inspire the next generation of female jockeys.

“There are a lot of good female apprentices coming through and I think that women are now treated equally in the sport,” she said.

“I have had people come up to me and tell me I’ve inspired their young daughter – and I love that.”

And when she sees the little girls at show jumping events on Sundays, running up to tell her they have a pony too, that they want to be just like her – she knows exactly what it means. “Even if I stop racing one day, I’ll be able to say, I made that kid proud. I made that younger generation want to get into this industry because of me. And that’s really important.”

As for what comes next, Jamie’s ambitions still burn brightly. Half Yours is being aimed at the Cox Plate, and she’s clear-eyed about the challenge ahead. “There are always good horses in this industry and there are a few stars that have stepped up recently – that’ll be a tough race to win. But Flemington’s his favourite track. Well, it’s definitely my favourite track too, so hopefully we can tick that off as well.”

The Lexus Melbourne Cup win has also changed the texture of everyday life. “Everyone knows you now – just little things, like going down to the shops and people running up to you.” But it’s the global reach of the race that still stops her in her tracks. “You can go overseas and people know about the Melbourne Cup. They might know nothing about racing, but they know you’ve won it.

It makes you feel like you’ve got a legacy now. It’s going to be in the history books for life, and they can’t take that away from me.”