Meet Australian horse racing’s female Melbourne Cup champions
Horse racing was once ‘a man’s sport’, but three trailblazers have inspired more girls to join the sport than ever before. Read about their amazing legacy ahead of the Melbourne Cup on November 3
READING LEVEL: GREEN
Jamie Melham vividly remembers the day Michelle Payne made history.
The then 19-year-old was glued to the TV in the women’s change rooms at Adelaide’s Morphettville racecourse when Payne crossed the finish line on Prince of Penzance, becoming the first female jockey to win Australia’s most famous horse race, the Melbourne Cup*.
In the room with Melham was a host of other jockeys – including Clare Lindop, another trailblazer as the first Australian woman to ride in the Melbourne Cup in 2003.
“All us girls were just beside ourselves,” Melham recalled. “It just felt like, ‘Wow, she’s done it, she’s opened up doors now for all of us.’
“Ever since then, the rooms have been overflowing with female jockeys.”
A decade after Payne’s landmark 2015 win, Melham followed in her footsteps. Not only that, she became the first woman jockey to complete the Melbourne-Caulfield Cup* double in the same year.
Payne was trackside for Melham’s win at Flemington, as part of the broadcast team. Moving post-race footage shows the women hugging before Payne exclaimed, “Welcome to the club! The times are changing.”
VWeekend magazine brought the pair together on the eve of the 2026 Melbourne Cup, which runs on Tuesday November 3, alongside the legendary Sheila Laxon, the first female trainer to win Flemington’s* premier race with horse Ethereal* in 2001.
Melham and Payne shared similar accounts of feeling intense pressure to prove themselves to droves of doubters before they made it big.
“When I started riding, there were a few owners and trainers that still weren’t happy (with a woman jockey). They were like, ‘This is a man’s horse’,” Melham said. “It was very difficult back then.”
Laxon said she could relate. The former amateur jockey-turned-trainer shared a story about being verbally abused by a male jockey who “told me to go back to the kitchen sink”.
“That was years ago now,” said Laxon, who co-trained a second Melbourne Cup winner on her second attempt in 2024 with Knight’s Choice. “But that’s how the naysayers* were, they didn’t think girls could ride. It’s fantastic to see how it’s changed.”
Speaking at Flemington’s stables, a few hundred metres from the straight where they each became famous, the women voiced their delight at the great strides Australian horse racing had made towards gender equality*.
All three praised their fellow history-makers for helping drive that change.
Melham said, “Michelle has broken through so many doors. I’m proud to say that I’ve broken down a few of those doors now, too.
“And Sheila’s strike rate of 100 per cent (wins from Cup starts) is incredible. I hadn’t really thought about it until being here with Michelle and Sheila, how well females have actually gone in the Melbourne Cup.”
Payne and Melham cited the fact that females now outnumbered males in Victoria’s apprentice jockey programs. Melham and Laxon also discussed their belief that women were generally better suited to being jockeys, due to their build, but also their temperament.
“I think females just get along with certain horses better,” Melham said. “All of us crazy horse girls who never grew up, we’re riding ponies on Sundays and on the weekdays, and I think that shows.”
Laxon added: “Women do tend to ask rather than bully (horses), and some horses really respond to that. Some horses, if you tell them, they just say no – especially geldings*, they don’t like to be dictated* to.
“In 25 years (since I won my first Melbourne Cup), women have broken all the glass ceilings*. They’ve proved themselves time and time and time again. I think they’ll continue to do so,” Laxon said.
Payne said whether she had won the Cup or not in 2015, she believes women would have come along “in leaps and bounds” in her sport.
“We have so many talented female jockeys in the sport in Australia. And we see it around the world now,” she said.
In Payne’s home state of Victoria, women account for 33.4 per cent of jockeys (up from 23.7 per cent a decade ago) and 27.5 per cent of licensed trainers (up from 22.5 per cent), Racing Victoria figures show. There are also more than 15,000 active female racehorse owners.
Female jockeys notched 716 wins in the 2025/26 season, rising from 590 in 2016/17.
And of the 38 riders in Racing Victoria’s current apprentice jockey training programs – which aim to develop aspiring jockeys into elite athletes – 29 are women.
“Sheila, Michelle and Jamie’s influence shows in the numbers,” RV CEO Aaron Morrison said. “In February, we welcomed 10 new riders into our 2026 Apprentice Jockey Squad – nine of them young women. Racing is one of the few sports where men and women compete as equals, with the same races, rules and prize money. Our job now is to keep building on what Sheila, Michelle and Jamie started, turning that participation into long careers for women in every part of the industry.”
On the importance of representation for women in sport – and society more broadly – tennis trailblazer Billie Jean King famously said, “If you can see it, you can be it.”
Payne echoes this sentiment when asked about the next step she’d like her sport to take to become more inclusive*.
“I think we’re going in the right direction,” she said. “The main thing is, we see so many young girls coming into the sport (because) they see that it’s possible now. There’s been a huge turnaround from when I started, when two of the 20 (apprentice jockeys) were females.
“In the last two intakes in Victoria, girls have hugely outnumbered boys. Now we have the same size jockeys’ rooms. The sport’s really getting behind it. I’m really proud to be a part of an industry that’s becoming more equal.”
POLL
GLOSSARY
- Melbourne Cup: the biggest thoroughbred horse race on the Australian horse racing calendar, held at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne
- Melbourne-Caulfield Cup: the Caulfield Cup is another famous thoroughbred horse race held in Melbourne just a few weeks before the Melbourne Cup. If you win both it is very prestigious
- Flemington: the name of the racecourse that the Melbourne Cup is held at
- Ethereal: the name of Laxon’s winning horse, Ethereal means light, airy or otherworldly
- naysayers: someone who always expresses negative views
- gender equality: equality between men and women
- geldings: a castrated (desexed) male horse
- dictated: ordered about
- glass ceilings: metaphorical invisible barriers that stop women from progressing to higher positions
- inclusive: including of women as much as men
EXTRA READING
From junior jockey to racing queen
Two races that stopped the nation
How Phar Lap won the Cup and the nation’s heart
QUICK QUIZ
1. In what way did Michelle Payne make history?
2. What feats has Jamie Melham recently achieved?
3. What are some examples of gender inequality that the three female horse racing legends in this article mentioned?
4. How has female participation in the sport changed in recent years?
5. In what way is horse racing different from many other sports in terms of gender equality?
LISTEN TO THIS STORY
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Women of horse racing
Create a ‘Women of horse racing’ slide show, with a slide for each of the three females featured in the news story. Include their name, photograph and their most outstanding achievements. Then create two more slides featuring prominent women in racing that you have researched yourself.
Time: allow 30 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English; Health and Physical Education; HASS
2. Extension
Write two questions you would like to be able to ask each of the women featured in your ‘Women of horse racing’ slide show.
Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English; Health and Physical Education; HASS
VCOP ACTIVITY
Girls in sport
There are many sports in which we’re seeing an increase in female participants. What sports have you noticed, or maybe joined yourself, where you have seen an increase in the number of girls now playing? How do you feel about this? Why do you feel this way? Do you think it’s a positive shift? Why/why not?
Use your VCOP to express how you feel towards girls taking up more sporting roles. Explain why you feel this way. Use your emotive language to express your point of view.