Jamie Kah: World’s best female jockey breaking glass ceilings
When a race-day tragedy claimed a close friend, jockey Jamie Kah nearly walked away from the sport. Now, she is inspiring a new generation of female riders. Listen to the podcast.
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She is the most talked about person in the Sport of Kings but South Australian-born top jockey Jamie Kah is happy to let her horse skills do most of the talking.
The naturally reserved and undemonstrative 25-year-old is widely rated as the No 1 female jockey in the world in a strong field, becoming stronger each year.
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And, despite her tender years, she already sits comfortably in the top echelon of Australian jockeys – up there with current champions and Melbourne Cup-winning jockeys Damien Oliver, Craig Williams and the ‘Streaky Bay Kid’, Kerrin McEvoy.
She’s so far ahead in the Melbourne Metropolitan Jockey’s Championship this year that only a lengthy suspension or bad luck with injury will stop her becoming the first woman to claim the title.
And she’s closing in on a feat that no jockey, not even the greats, have achieved – 100 city winners in a season.
Having ridden 1000 winners in less than a decade, she’s firmly in the spotlight and much in demand by the media, but, forever humble she’s the only one still uncertain what the fuss is all about.
“People are taking photos of me walking into the jockeys’ room,” she says. “It’s like, ‘Wow, this is just ridiculous’. But it’s still really cool.
“For me, I’m just doing my job and then I go home to my horses. It’s what I do.”
Race fans love Kah for her ‘kind’ riding style; she rarely uses the whip in any vigorous manner, and her white-heat, steely determination to cross the line first.
There have been winners on 53 Australian tracks from Darwin to the Sunshine Coast and across the seas to Kangaroo Island and Launceston, and even international triumphs in Singapore.
Success comes with lofty financial rewards. Jockeys receive a fee of around $225 for every ride and at least 5 per cent of prizemoney. Kah will likely earn more than $1 million this year, placing her among the highest Australian female sporting earners, including world No 1 tennis player Ash Barty, soccer player Sam Kerr, golfer Minjee Lee and surfer Steph Gilmore.
But the acclaim comes at a cost.
Riding horses day in, day out is a tough, dangerous and fraught job, with the unreasonable expectations of trainers, owners and aggrieved punters a constant pressure.
In the world of social media, it’s not just at the track the punters can vent their fury and Kah has been targeted for some vile online abuse.
The rise to the top in less than 10 years has come with elation, tragedy and uncertainty, including a time when, at just 19, she walked away and didn’t know if she’d ever ride as a jockey again.
Ask those who know Jamie Kah best and they say what sets her apart as a jockey is an innate ability to understand her horse and a fearsome dedication and professionalism.
On the day I interview her at her property on the Mornington Peninsula, in Victoria, in midafternoon she’s already been up for 13 hours and later will drive the hour to Pakenham racecourse for just one ride at the night meeting.
Of course, it won.
She wasn’t home before 10.30pm and was up again five hours later.
As we chat, she’s where she feels most comfortable, perched on a horse’s back. She’s gently teaching the excited youngster to remain calm and become accustomed to having a passenger aboard.
First plonked on a pony before she could walk, understanding the whims and ways of horses is something she’s been doing her entire life.
Raised in the Adelaide Hills, the daughter of Winter Olympian speed skaters John and Karen, Kah describes herself as a “spoiled rotten only child” of older parents.
“They both got to live a lot of life before I came along,” she says. “Mum was 35 and they’d both been successful sports people themselves. They were very health conscious and we ate well. It was an outdoor life riding horses and bikes, and I was always fit and strong as a kid.”
Following the path of tens of thousands of young Australian girls each year, Kah joined a pony club, before honing her skills from the age of nine in the Mounted Games, representing Australia overseas at 14.
The Games, inspired by an idea of Prince Philip, is a branch of equestrian sport which involves relays on ponies, constantly jumping off and on, and picking up items, flags and tent pegs, off the ground at a gallop.
“It’s a long way from dressage and it’s not for the faint hearted,” she says with a laugh. “You need dexterity and good athletic ability and stamina. You ride a different horse in each race and there could be 20 events a day. It helped me understand how each horse is different and you have to adapt. It’s a balance of making them do what you want and keeping them happy, thinking they are only doing what they want.”
The same year she competed for Australia she got a part-time after school job around the stables of local trainer John MacMillan at Mount Pleasant with never any intention of becoming a jockey.
“I only went there for some pocket money to buy rugs and presents for my horses,” she says. “But John encouraged me to jump on a racehorse and I fell in love with it. Just the speed and power of a thoroughbred compared to my ponies was incredible.
“I learned how to get the best out of a horse without over working them. I’m known as being a quiet rider – and that’s where it began.”
A year later at 15, to a few raised eyebrows including her mother’s, she was out of school and had signed her apprenticeship papers. MacMillan, a former show jumping rider and successful jockey with a degree in animal science, couldn’t believe his good fortune.
“Her riding was impeccable and her ability to read a horse was unparalleled,” he says. “She knew instinctively if a horse was responding because it was frightened or belligerent and how to deal with that.
“She wanted to learn and learned quickly. I was raving from the early days she would make it big so her success is no surprise. They say work beats talent, if talent doesn’t work. Well Jamie has both – and that’s very hard to beat.”
MacMillan was riding at Warrnambool in the 1990s when he witnessed a 16-year-old Clare Lindop making a name for herself.
Moving to South Australia to forge her career, Lindop retired 20 years later with more than 1400 wins, five jockeys’ premierships and a tag as the most accomplished female rider Australia has produced.
“Clare was a special talent and I hadn’t seen that again in a girl before Jamie came along,” MacMillan adds.
As the brother of Ruth MacMillan, the first Australian woman to ride a city treble and the first to secure an overseas contract (when she rode in Macau) he had early insight into the challenges women faced in a virtually exclusive male domain.
“Ruth was one winner short of being the first women in the world to win an apprentice premiership,” he says of his sister who retired early after her first baby.
“You’ve got to give credit to Leon Macdonald (Hall of Fame SA Trainer) because he was a big supporter of Ruth and then later he was Clare’s trainer. Leon was ahead of his time promoting women.
“When Ruth first went to the races a senior administrator told her: ‘I don’t know why they’re letting you in here – women will never make jockeys’. I’ve got an equestrian background where women and men compete equally. I had total faith in Jamie and put her on every horse I could.
“The head of the apprentice school told me I was putting her on too much and she’d outride her apprentice claim in two years and that would be sure to damage her.
“Well, she did all that and more – and it didn’t do her any harm.”
Kah rode in her first professional race in March 2012 on a dirt track at Streaky Bay on maiden galloper Miss Fabuleaux. The horse wasn’t very fabulous, running a distant third, but the rider didn’t take long to enter the winner’s stall riding Magic Tigress, for her master MacMillan, 14 days later at Clare on Easter Saturday.
Winners flowed and in her first full season, 2012-13, as a 17-year-old apprentice, she won the Adelaide Jockeys’ Premiership, an extraordinary feat, and the John Letts Medal for riding excellence.
She moved to Melbourne in April 2014 to finish her apprenticeship with the top stable of Mick Price but was alone and lonely in the big smoke and returned to Adelaide.
Success brings greater pressure and also the intensified jealousy of rivals. It was a difficult time. There were outward signs things were getting to the teenager: a run of more than 50 races without a victory; a three-week suspension for giving false evidence to stewards about a medical certificate and a Facebook post explaining in precise detail the reasons why some people weren’t on her Christmas card list.
That incident put more than a few noses out around the tracks. Stewards fined her even though she wasn’t the one who posted it online. They were silly, immature mistakes which online trolls, including former so-called friends, tried to exploit.
Then there was the horrifying tragic death of Caitlin Forrest, caused by a fall at Murray Bridge in October 2014 that rocked the entire racing industry.
Kah was riding behind her friend in the race. The young women were only a year apart in age and on parallel paths to stardom. It was an emotional trigger point.
Less than six months later she admitted to being burnt out, mentally drained, but had the good sense to take a break and to go and live life like a teenager.
She travelled to the Netherlands to stay with relatives of her father, who was born and raised there, and worked in a show jumping stable where she bought a Dutch Warmblood and enjoyed the thrill of competing again.
“I needed the break; all my friends were on their gap year after finishing school. And I’d been a full-time jockey for three years,” she says. “You’ve got this responsibility to grow up straight away – you don’t get to be normal. That time was awesome. I had a life and got fat!”
Later she met up with Adelaide jockeys Libby Hopwood and Claudia Lions, and travelled in 24 European countries, letting their hair down, but she’s sticking with the trio’s pledge that what happens on a Contiki tour stays on a Contiki tour. There were a couple of likely lads keen on romance but no one who held her attention enough to prevent a return home.
Refreshed and refocused she was back in Adelaide ready for the next racing season in August, 2015.
She initially found it difficult to re-establish herself but soon proved a dominant, irresistible force and won the next two SA jockey premierships before again making the inevitable move back to Melbourne in early 2019.
She was older, more assured and determined to succeed against the very best, but the stakes in Melbourne are far higher, literally, and it’s a cutthroat, dog-eat-dog existence with millions of dollars on the line. “When I moved to Melbourne there was some negativity and bitchiness,” she says. “Some of the girls in particular can be quite nasty. I heard from friends that there were some doubters that I was up to it and would stay the course. Winning my first Group 1 told them they were wrong.”
A first Group 1 victory is a giant step for any jockey. These races, only 60 across Australia each year, carry historic significance and the highest prizemoney.
Kah’s moment arrived two months after the Melbourne move when she secured a ride in the $1.5m Australian Cup on an enigmatic longshot named Harlem, perhaps an omen because he is named after a town in the Netherlands.
The David Hayes-trained gelding had won the Australian Cup 12 months earlier but had been legless and seemingly uninterested in nine runs since. When Kah sat on him for the first time in the Flemington parade ring, he was friendless in betting and considered an also-ran at odds of 33/1.
“We jumped and travelled sweetly and he just waited for me to push the button,” she says reliving every stride. “It was over in a hurry. I couldn’t believe it.
“My first feeling was such relief that I’d proved them wrong … I thought, ‘Everyone can just shut up after that’.”
There have been another four Group 1 victories since, the most recent being the $3m Doncaster Handicap in Sydney last month riding Cascadian for James Cummings, the grandson of Glenelg-born training genius Bart Cummings.
The horse is owned by the Godolphin syndicate, the private racing stable of the Al Maktoum family, the rulers of Dubai. Their booking of Kah is another clear indication the wider racing world knows she’s special.
Someone else who thinks she’s special is legendary sports commentator Bruce McAvaney who has said Kah is “transcending her sport” and “giving racing a good name”.
A fifth Group 1 victory took her level with Melbourne Cup winner Michelle Payne, who has been a friend and safe confidante, and one ahead of Lindop, who has watched Kah’s career from near and far as a mentor.
“From the beginning Jamie was always very quiet, polite and unassuming,” Lindop, now a Holdfast Bay councillor, says. “She asked a lot of questions and had immaculate gear, which was a big tick from me.”
The first Australian woman to ride in the Melbourne Cup, on Debben in 2003, Lindop says Kah is unflustered and never appears crippled by nerves. “She doesn’t show her disappointment and never gets over excited by a victory,” she says.
“A lot of people get bitter with the disappointments and I let Jamie know you have to keep an even keel.
“There’s no point arguing or falling out with owners and trainers because they are your livelihood. Bite your tongue and grab your opportunities when they come.
“I don’t know of a time when she’s had a public sacking. That says a lot for her. It might have happened but there’s been no fuss about it.
“I was disappointed when she came back from Melbourne that time – because I knew she could be the next one to break down more barriers (for female jockeys) but in hindsight it was all too early and she’s better prepared now.
Lindop, whose idol was Michelle Payne’s older sister Maree, says in her early days she had to appear butch to be accepted but is pleased the sport has rejected the cliche of female jockeys “having soft hands” but being weak.
“You had to be as tough as the boys and as strong as the boys to be considered one of the boys, and thankfully that’s changed now,” she says.
“I always said I was a jockey first and a female jockey second but I definitely felt the pressure of wanting to achieve because I didn’t want people to say girls can’t ride.”
Kah feels that responsibility too and as her profile has risen rapidly she’s realised she is having a profound influence on the younger generation.
“I’ve had people come up and say their daughter is inspired by me,” she says, clearly still in awe of the adulation.
“That’s next level to know I’ve inspired someone and made me think I do have a responsibility to not just be the best I can but to keep giving back.”
But she’s not going to sugar coat it for those who think the life of a jockey is endless glitz and glamour.
For every top jockey making a fabulous living there are 50 more just scraping by despite still slogging away tirelessly.
“It’s hard to just tell people this is a great job and you’ll love it all because it’s not like that,” she says. “There are a lot of sacrifices in being a jockey.
“There’s the early mornings and the weight loss and then the injuries. I’ve already got bad knees and that’s something jockeys live with all their lives.
“The positives outweigh the negatives but there is a down side.”
Dating is another hazard for jockeys given their unsociable hours – it’s difficult to have a decent night on the town when you’ve got to be up at 3.30am.
Kah did all she could to date “normal” people and avoid becoming romantically involved with another jockey, but it didn’t work out.
“It was a headache,” she says. “They just didn’t understand the demands and even if they did they didn’t cope.”
Clayton Douglas, a jockey himself from a strong racing family, was the beneficiary and since the two teamed up they’ve been inseparable, buying a farm at Somerville and establishing their own training facility.
“When you find the right person they support you through the good and bad days,” she says.
“It’s much better now he’s not competing against me. I’d just end up watching him and worrying about him in a race than staying fully focused.
“Having Clayton and the farm here is good for my head.”
She also has a new high-profile agent, Dynamic Sports and Entertainment Group, led by James Henderson, whose clients include Ricky Ponting and Alastair Clarkson.
There are many things left to achieve on the racetracks of the world but her sights are firmly set on hometown glory in today’s Group 1 Goodwood Handicap at Morphettville. “That would be very special to win one of South Australia’s big races,” she says.
“I think I was lucky starting my career in Adelaide as it’s been proven it’s the best and most supportive place for female jockeys to start. I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way but there are people who have always looked out for me there.”
The Jamie Kah fan club is growing each day and will be trackside at Morphettville today to cheer on a sublime homegrown talent, at the peak of her powers, breaking records and shattering glass ceilings.
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