Over the last year champion jockey Jamie Kah has beaten a life-threatening race fall and a white powder scandal that threatened her career to give herself a great chance of becoming just the second woman to ride to victory in the Melbourne Cup.
Kah, a nine-time Group 1 winner, will ride five-year-old import More Felons in the $8.4million race that stops a nation on Tuesday.
The 27-year-old will be looking to win her first Cup – and More Felons’ trainer Chris Waller says he is very happy to have ‘the world’s best’ riding his horse.
‘We took [More Felons] to Flemington on Thursday and Jamie had her first feel of the horse,’ Waller told Punters+.
‘It’s great to get the services of Jamie. She has an amazing gift with horses, they relax so well for her, and they respond to her.
Jamie Kah is looking to be the second female to win the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday
Kah is coming back from a sickening fall in March that left her with a brain injury
‘Looking ahead to a two-mile [3200m] race they are important factors when selecting a jockey for a horse.
‘It’s amazing what Jamie’s achieved during her career and we’re looking forward to Tuesday’s race. What she’s been through in the last 12 months is unbelievable, she’s a real athlete, she’s well prepared and she’s a great thinker, a great horse person.
‘I think we’ve got one of the world’s best riding on Tuesday.’
If Kah can win on Tuesday she will become just the second female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup after Michelle Payne.
It’ll also be all the more sweeter given the horror year she’s had, starting with a shocking fall at Flemington in March that left her with a serious brain injury.
When she came out of an induced five-day coma, Kah didn’t know who she was and had to Google her name to find some information about herself.
The injury kept her out of racing for five months, and she only returned to the saddle in August.
Kah also copped a misconduct charge for a ‘white powder’ controversy after photos that appeared to show her rack up a line of a mysterious substance surfaced on social media in June.
The story broke just a day after she announced her return to racing.
Trainer Chris Waller labelled Kah ‘the world’s best’ as she prepares to steer his horse More Felons to victory in the country’s biggest race
The champion jockey was caught up in a white powder scandal this year after photos seemingly showed her racking up lines of a mysterious substance
The images (pictured) surfaced just a day after Kah announced her return to the saddle – and resulted in her being charged by race stewards
Tuesday’s race will be the nine-time Group 1 winner’s third attempt to win the Melbourne Cup (pictured with legendary Aussie jockey Damien Oliver at Flemington last year)
The emergence of the controversial images cast a shadow over Kah’s highly anticipated return to horse racing.
Stewards charged her and another woman over the photos, alleging they broke the rule that states ‘a person must not engage in conduct prejudicial to the image, interests, integrity, or welfare of racing, whether or not that conduct takes place within a racecourse or elsewhere’.
‘I am working hard to get back to doing what I love, and that is being a passionate and successful jockey,’ said Kah afterwards.
‘I will continue to focus on my physical and mental health and making a full recovery so I can return to racing and be the best person that I can possibly be.’
Kah hasn’t found the incredible form she had before her horror fall, but there are plenty who think she is capable – including Payne.
‘Obviously it’s very hard coming back from an injury like that but I think that she’s not panicking and you can’t,’ the 2015 Cup winner said.
‘She’s not getting the calibre of horses that she was, but I think she’s still riding as good as ever.
‘If I had a horse good enough for her to ride I wouldn’t have any hesitations in putting her on. It’s a game where you need the luck to be going your way and I always say it’s like a big circle, it keeps coming back around.
‘People that have ability are going great now and then it’ll come around and she’ll be flying again. She’s done a remarkable job to come back from her injury like she did and she’ll get back there.’
