Melbourne and Sydney prepare for massive race day; all the odds, predictions, start times and results
There’s no number on the fence, there’s no car in the driveway. This flat block of wet soil and lush, tufted grass has a kind of bare, unfinished air to it, as if Michelle Payne’s old, white, wooden house had been placed in the middle of a deserted paddock. The retired jockey’s farm is located somewhere north of Ballarat, a regional hub that always seems to be the coldest place in Victoria, and on this arctic August afternoon it is predictably painfully frozen.
The wind-chilled area is so far removed from the pomp, pageantry and warmth of Melbourne’s spring racing carnival – the magnificent Flemington Racecourse roses and champagne-soaked tents and the dandies and mares drunkenly stumbling around in all their hatted finery – that for a moment I wonder if I’m in the right place. I actually had my doubts when I got to the front door because it was covered in a huge pile of dried bird droppings.
Michelle Payne at her home on a farm north of Ballarat.Credit: Josh Robenstone
Still, I tap my fingers on the threshold, and with a delayed swish and click, she finally emerges, the first and only female jockey to win “the race that stops a nation.” That was 10 years ago, of course, when Payne, then 30, was on top of the longest long shots – the Prince of Penzance with a 101-1 chance – yet won the day with a dazzling drive that sparked a memoir (The Life I Know) then a movie (Drive Like a Girl).
These days she’s a trainer and greets me with her brushed, high ponytail and bright face after a hard morning of running in and out of the stables. Payne chats about the cold weather in a thin, surprisingly shaky voice as he leads me down a Baltic pine corridor to the living room, then perches himself on a comfortable sofa, knees pulled up to his chest. His feet were under a warm brown blanket, the gas heater in the corner was on, and the timbre of his voice was deepening.
Payne has a story to tell, and it’s not the bums-to-glory tale you might expect after his famous victory.
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