Top hoop Ben Melham defers Victoria Derby excessive whip use suspension to ensure Melbourne Cup ride
IT took some weighing up, but Ben Melham will ride in Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup after choosing to delay a six-meeting suspension for excessive whip use on Victoria Derby runner-up Stars of Carrum.
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IT took some weighing up, but Ben Melham will ride in Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup.
But the jockey has been forced to forego two Group 1 chances next Saturday after copping a six-meeting suspension for excessive whip use in the Victoria Derby.
Melham was hit with the ban after stewards determined he whipped runner-up Stars of Carrum 12 times before the final 100m of the race — seven times more than permitted, and over four consecutive strides.
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He spent more than half an hour after the suspension was handed down — after the inquiry was put on hold due to the Melbourne Cup barrier draw — to decide whether to start the ban immediately and miss his Cup ride Who Shot Thebarman or begin it on Tuesday night, as stewards ruled, and miss key mounts on Homesman and Santa Ana Lane on Stakes Day.
But after much deliberation and a few phone calls, the Cup ride won out.
“I don’t know (what swayed me), to be honest,” Melham said.
“I had a brief chat to the owners … it’s unfortunate because I’ll miss Homesman and Santa Ana Lane, which obviously have been good horses to me and I ride them all the time, but the long and the short of it is that I was booked on a horse in the Melbourne Cup and the owners would prefer I ride the horse.
“We’ll see how it goes.”
He said that he had committed the offence “through frustration”.
“I ran second in the Caulfield Cup and got held up,” Melham said in the hearing.
“I was going to run second again. It’s just through frustration and trying to win the race.”
Young jockey Ben Allen — who only returned from suspension on Wednesday — was hit with an 11-meeting ban for careless riding aboard Peaceful State in the Kennedy Mile, while Dean Yendall copped 10 meetings — which will start on Tuesday night — for careless riding in the same race for his shift across Tye Angland on Comin’ Through.
It was deemed to be mid-range, with Yendall doing his best to sway stewards away from a ban, suggesting a less conventional way to pay the price.
“Bit of lawnmowing here and there, maybe,” he joked when asked for his submission on penalty.
He will spend his suspension wisely, he said, saying he would “get my golf handicap down to zero”.
James McDonald was fined $400 for whip use on Le Romain in the Kennedy Mile.
Originally published as Top hoop Ben Melham defers Victoria Derby excessive whip use suspension to ensure Melbourne Cup ride