Jamie Kah opens up about the Adelaide Cup after emotional Flemington win
The world’s best female jockey Jamie Kah is keen to keep her winning form on track with hopes of another Adelaide Cup victory – the heat be damned.
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The world’s best female jockey said there is no better place for horses than the racetrack as South Australians brace for another day of extreme heat and the Adelaide Cup.
Jamie Kah, fresh from her third straight Group 1 win at Flemington, took young riders through some tricks of the trade ahead of the Adelaide Cup at Morphettville on Sunday.
The 12-time Group 1 winning jockey took a group of pony club riders through some drills ahead of the pony race as part of the racing carnival on Monday.
RSPCA SA this week called for temperature limits and races to be cancelled amid extreme heat conditions, citing a concern for horse welfare in the high temperatures.
Kah said there were control measures in place at racing stables for the extreme heat tipped to reach 36C on Monday.
“Obviously we all think about the horse welfare, but especially the pony racing, they’ve got a really early start,” she said.
“All I’m thinking is the horses would either be at home in the paddock getting hot or they’d be getting worked and would be getting a hose-off straight away.
“They’ll be looked after. They’ve got the misters and the fans around them.
“I think it’s a lot safer being at the track for them than being at home in the paddock on these hot days.”
Kah said the racing industry had “really improved” its planning around hot weather days from when she started as a jockey.
“I think they’ve really improved it and stepped it up,” she said.
“If the heat goes over a certain limit then they can start the races earlier, they finish earlier, there’s shorter gaps, there’s always hoses and ice buckets for horses out there when they get straight off the track.”
Kah, who rode Cylinder to victory to claim the Group 1 Newmarket Handicap at Flemington on Saturday, said no horse or rider had any heat-related problems.
“They were looked after really well, they were in and out really quickly,” she said.
“(They are) only in the mounting yard for a few minutes and I think they’ve really improved since I started.”
Despite a career-threatening fall last year, the Adelaide-born and Melbourne-based jockey has climbed to the top of world rankings, and has given her top tips to budding young riders ahead of the pony race.
She was reunited with her pony Sapphire who she rode to the under-15 championships, and now under saddle with jockey Jeffrey Maund’s daughter Monique.
“It’s such an amazing program – I wish I had done it back in the day,” Kah said.
“I love coming to these sorts of things, they give you such a good starting point if you want to be a jockey,” she said.
“It shows them how to get into it, the industry, and brings back some really good memories of when I was in pony club.”
She hopes to keep her winning form when she rides The Map and aims to claim her hometown Adelaide Cup for a second time on Monday.
Speaking in Adelaide on her recent form, Kah said she felt things were “really on a roll at the moment”.
“I didn’t think emotionally drained was a thing, but it is. I was emotionally drained last night,” she said.
“It was an incredible day – you couldn’t script what happened.
“I couldn’t see, there were just too many tears in my goggles.”
Ella Bowen, 11, said she was thrilled to get some expert tips of the trade she hoped would give her an edge in the pony race on Monday.
She said Kah was an inspiration to young riders.
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