Half Yours, Jamie Melham wins

Melham are now among the sport’s best with five wins out of three and one win in the cup.

“It’s been long enough, ten years, I had to do it sooner or later,” he said of his new place in history.

“You don’t dream about this day because you think about it, you don’t actually think about winning the Melbourne Cup… No emotion can describe what I felt at that moment, what I still feel.

“I was absolutely speechless. My mum and dad burst into tears again, I had just stopped crying. “This is what we do, waking up at a stupid hour every morning to get to these big days and win in front of the world.

“From the outside, it looks like a wonderful, glamorous industry, and it has its good parts, but my God, it has some hard parts, some really hard parts. That’s why we do this, to go down in history on days like this.”

Adding to the uniqueness of her victory, Melham was racing against her husband Ben Melham, who rode Smokin’ Romans and finished 14th. The spouses competed against each other in the Melbourne Cup for the first time.

“I’ve had a great year. I got married, I’ve had some really great days on the track, but nothing compares to this feeling I’m feeling right now,” said Jamie Melham.

She shared a brief, emotional hug with her husband after the race.

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“I said, ‘I rode the way you told me.’ We don’t normally talk about races much, but we had this race about 10-15 times yesterday and it was exactly what I wanted it to be,” he said.

“Normally what you want to happen doesn’t happen, but in these big races there’s a lot of good luck, a lot of luck and you just have to ride them well.”

Former history-making jockey Jamie Kah also noted the influence of his grandfather, who passed away last week and was only able to see him and Half Yours win the first half of the 2025 cup.

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“I have to mention my grandfather,” Melham said after the Nine race.

“He died last week. The last thing he watched was the Caulfield Cup and he was a huge supporter of mine.”

“So he’s opening up those gaps for me there because I needed a few gaps opened up.”

Speaking at the post-race presentation, Melham said his dream as a young jockey was to race in the Melbourne Cup, so winning was one thing. He said the feeling was “indescribable.”