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high

Asherincrediblestoryoftragedy,

triumphandfamilyloveis

immortalisedonthebigscreen,

trailblazingjockeyMichellePayne

takesSusan Horsburgh

backtowhereit allbegan.

A

s kids, Michelle Payne and her brother Stevie

used to wake up early every morning, jump

out of the bed they top-and-tailed in, and put

on Phar Lap, the 1983 movie about

Australasia’s most famous racehorse.

Michelle reckons they watched it hundreds of times and

could probably still recite the film from start to finish.

The 11th and youngest child of Ballarat horse trainer

Paddy Payne, Michelle was only five years old back then,

but already fixed on a dream: to ride the winning horse

in the Melbourne Cup. On a blue-sky day some 25 years

later, when Michelle found herself in the mounting yard

at Flemington with thoroughbred Prince of Penzance and

Stevie as her strapper, about to tackle the world’s toughest

two-mile race, she had to marvel at life’s machinations.

“I was like, here we are, the two little kids,” says

Michelle. “I remember just looking down at Stevie,

shaking my head and smiling. Who would have thought

all those years ago watching Phar Lap that we’d be here

about to race in the biggest race together? That was so

special.” As she headed off, Stevie told her, “Don’t get

beat. I’ve got my money on you.”

Loaded into barrier one, she said a silent prayer to

her mother, who was killed in a car crash when

Michelle was a baby, and to sister Brigid, a fellow

jockey who had died after a fall eight years earlier. She

could feel them with her. And then they were off. A

100-to-one outsider, Prince of Penzance thundered

across the finish line and into the history books – and

Michelle, at 30, became the first female jockey to win

the Melbourne Cup.

Seared into Michelle’s memory is Stevie leading her

and the horse back to the scales. “That was just a dream

come true,” she says. “It didn’t even seem like real life.”^

PHOTOGRAPHY by WILL HORNER • STYLING by REBECCA RAC

Riding

Michelle PAYNE

Champion