‘It shocked me’: The series of events that ended Michelle Payne’s riding career

A series of “random” head knocks during track work has convinced Michelle Payne to retire from race riding almost nine years after she rewrote the history books by becoming the first female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup.

Payne has informed Racing Victoria that she will not be reapplying for a jockey’s licence beyond this season, which ends on July 31, bringing to a close one of this country’s most inspirational sporting careers.

Michelle Payne after winning the 2015 Melbourne Cup on Prince Of Penzance.Credit: Justin McManus

Payne, who had her first race ride as a 15-year-old in 2001, said she knew it was time to call it quits after suffering three successive black eyes from training accidents at the end of last year.

“I had three horses, one took fright and gave me a really decent whack in the head, another one did the same thing and it gave me a blood nose, and then another one of my young horses bucked me off, but with quite a nasty knock to the head again. So I got three black eyes all in a row,” Payne said.

“It was late last year, and it knocked me around a bit and probably shocked me into retirement a bit quicker than I was thinking. But it was on the cards anyway.”

While Payne, who has had a joint trainer-jockey licence since 2016, is intending to hang up the saddle for good come August, she has not ruled out farewell rides before the end of the season.

“I did a concussion test at Sandown on Saturday, because they were doing testing for jockeys for the new season, just to see if I could ride for the last couple of months of my licence, and I passed, so that was all good,” she said.

“It is a new era in my life and I guess a bit emotional, but things come to an end and I have been lucky to survive some pretty horrible injuries.”

Payne suffered a number of career-threatening falls across her 23 years in the saddle. In 2004, the then 18-year-old was sent head first into the turf after her horse fell 100 metres past the Sandown winning post and she suffered a fractured skull and bruising on the brain.

Jamie Kah (left), Glen Boss, Corey Brown and Michelle Payne launch the Melbourne Cup tour on Tuesday.Credit: Victoria Racing Club

In 2016, just six months after her record-breaking Melbourne Cup win on Prince Of Penzance, Payne was trampled on and required pancreatic surgery after she fell from her brother Patrick’s horse during a race in Mildura.

At the time, Payne defied calls to retire even though she had achieved her life-long dream of winning the Cup, a feat that inspired a movie, Ride Like A Girl, as well as a new generation of female jockeys.

The ongoing impact of her seismic win and her powerful post-race speech that women “beat the world” are still being felt today.

One of Australia’s leading jockeys, Jamie Kah, said at the VRC’s Melbourne Cup tour launch on Tuesday that Payne’s 2015 victory in the race that stops a nation was a “massive turning point” for women in racing.

“Probably from when I started riding (in 2012), it was already changing, but probably a good five or six years before that, the Clare Lindops of the world would never have imagined doing what Michelle did,” Kah said.

Michelle Payne, who is calling time on riding, helped launch the VRC’s new honour boards this month.Credit: Vince Caligiuri/Getty Images

“It was just a really good turning point. Now trainers see good jockeys and they put the good jockeys on.

“It is not a good female jockey, or a good male jockey – it’s, if they are a good jockey and they ride well, they put them on. There’s no sexist people in this industry any more, and I think Michelle really helped that.”

During the past four months Payne has begun working more closely with her trainer brother Patrick, allowing her to find more time to balance speaking and charity engagements with the seven-day workload of training a team of 10 horses at her Miners Rest property, near Ballarat.

“It probably got to the point earlier this year when I didn’t know how I could keep managing it,” Payne said.

“With consistent management of staff, track riders, education of babies and grass gallops – I was very lucky to be able to lean on my brother for some support, he’s been amazing.

“What I have been able to do for him [in return] is head to Tasmania for the carnival with his horses, head to Adelaide for the carnival with his team, and fill in at the races where he needs a hand.”

She said it was too early to tell whether they would consider forming a training partnership.

Following her rise to national prominence in 2015, Payne is still very much in demand.

She helped launch the VRC’s Melbourne Cup tour at Flemington on Tuesday by announcing the Victorian destinations of Cowes, Melbourne, Alpine Shire, Mountt Wycheproof, Rochester, Nathalia, Woodside, Trentham and Lancefield. Earlier this month she unveiled new honour boards outside the VRC committee room to recognise past Cup winners and VRC chairpersons, secretaries and CEOs.

“Having a bit of relief from the training definitely helps being able to juggle all of those sorts of things,” Payne said.

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