If Jamie Melham wins the Caulfield Cup, it’d be the feel-good story of the spring

Trainer Tony McEvoy has given Jamie Melham several of her biggest moments in racing. On Saturday, Melham has the opportunity to return the favour for her former mentor with a horse bred and previously owned by another person close to her heart.

In a perfect world, Melham would have been sporting the royal blue and lime hoops of the late Colin McKenna, on-board Half Yours in Saturday’s Caulfield Cup.

Half Yours, a horse that was running in Seymour as recently as April, is the raging favourite in one of Australia’s most famous races. The five-year-old son of bargain-priced sire St Jean will also be a sentimental favourite among many in the racing world.

His unlikely story to the top ties in McKenna, the Warrnambool meat-processing giant and prominent racehorse owner, one of Australia’s biggest trainers Ciaron Maher, gun hoop Melham and McEvoy, an experienced horseman and longtime lieutenant to legendary trainer Colin Hayes and his hall of fame trainer son David. A win for Half Yours would make Melham the first woman to win the Caulfield Cup as a jockey.

Like many of the horses owned by the McKenna family, Half Yours was trained by Maher. Sadly, McKenna, one of Melham’s biggest backers when she was coming through the riding ranks, died last October. Melham and Michelle Payne led a horseback procession at McKenna’s funeral.

“I went through some tough times in racing, and he would call me every day, and ring me every day, and make sure I was OK, and make me come and stay with him and [his wife] Janice,” Melham said after winning a race over last year’s Flemington carnival on McKenna’s horse Another Wil.

Half Yours was sold last November for $305,000, a considerable sum given his unfashionable bloodlines and modest record on the track.

At the time, Half Yours had given little indication he would become the horse he is today. From five starts, he had won two nondescript races out of town – the second of which created quite an impression: a six-length victory in a lowly benchmark 64 at Cranbourne.

Enter McEvoy. His son and co-trainer Calvin, and the stable’s racing manager Rayan Moore were moved.

“We ran the figures on it and it was a very impressive win on the figures we run,” Moore said.

Someone else shared that view, as the McEvoy stable would learn in November when the bids kept coming in the online sale run by bloodstock auction house Inglis. The price soared well above their initial expectation of about $200,000.

“At $250,000, I was ready to stop,” Tony McEvoy said. “But the boys pushed me hard.”

Said Moore: “We were all sitting in the office doing the online bidding. We were racking our brains who would be interested in the horse.”

Moore had an inkling they were bidding against Maher. They were right.

“He was just a good horse and our interest was vindicated by how he’s gone,” Maher told this masthead, confirming he was indeed the other bidder. “I’d much rather to still be training him and for Col to be still with us.”

Half Yours has banked another $470,000 since his purchase by the McEvoys. The winner’s cheque on Saturday is worth $3 million, 10 times his auction price.

McEvoy came agonisingly close to winning the Caulfield Cup in 2002 with Fields Of Omagh, beaten a lip by the champion Northerly.

The race has also eluded Melham, who has ridden in the race three times for a best placing of fourth on Prince Of Arran in 2020.

Melham cut her teeth in South Australia riding for McEvoy. The pair dominated in that state. McEvoy won six trainers’ premierships, and Melham three jockey titles.

Melham, then known by her maiden name Kah, caught McEvoy’s attention by regularly beating his horses.

“I thought, ‘If you can’t beat them, join them’,” McEvoy said. “I tried hard to get her to ride for me, and it eventually happened.

“Even back then, the people who knew her well knew she would get to the heights that she has. I was lucky enough to get her to ride for us. I was merely a vehicle on her journey.

“I didn’t have much to do with her talents. She was extremely talented, very natural. Horses loved her and I just gave her opportunities, which helped me a lot as well.

“I’m very fond of her and feel she’s closer to me than most because of that journey. I applaud her for what she does, she’s amazing.”

Winning a race as famous as the Caulfield Cup with Melham would be extra special for McEvoy, given their association.

“Colin Hayes taught me very early on – you’ve got to surround yourself with good people if you’re going to be as good as you can be,” McEvoy said.

“For a trainer to have someone like Jamie riding for you in an elite race, it just relaxes you in a way because she’s been there before, knows the horse well, and you know she’s going to do a bloody good job of it. It’s really special to have her on the horse for us.”

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