Female jockey makes history in Melbourne

Prince Of Penzance jockey Michelle Payne, right celebrates with strapper Stevie Payne, left after winning the Melbourne Cup at the Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, Australia, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2015. (AP Photo/Andy Brownbill)

MELBOURNE—Michelle Payne became the first female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday when she rode the 100-1 outsider Prince of Penzance to victory in Australia’s richest horse race.

Payne pushed the six-year-old Prince of Penzance through a narrow gap in the straight and surged ahead of the Irish stayer Max Dynamite, ridden by Frankie Dettori, and New Zealand-owned Criterion, ridden by Michael Walker, for the victory.

Australian bookmakers Ladbrokes paid a winning dividend of AU$101 ($72) on Prince of Penzance, who is owned by six self-described “small-fry owners”: a podiatrist, two engineers, an IT consultant, a solutions expert and a producer. The owners paid AU$5,000 ($3,500) each to buy the horse.

Payne has ridden the horse throughout its career and said she always considered it a potential Melbourne Cup winner.

“This is unbelievable,” Payne said in a television interview immediately after the race. “I laid in bed last night and I gave myself time to think and dream about it.  This horse is awesome, what he’s been through.”

If it hadn’t been for Payne—the only female rider in the race and only the fifth in history to gain a Cup ride—the horse would barely have been mentioned in pre-race commentary.  AP