Michelle Payne: The Australian’s Australian of the year

When Michelle Payne won the Melbourne Cup on the 100-1 Prince Of Penzance, she did far more than win a horse race.

Michelle Payne

There is nothing fancy about Mich­elle Payne’s office.

The walls of the women’s ­jockey room at Flemington are drab and unadorned. The furnishings are a low bench and pine bunk bed. There is a tumble drier to spin the sweat from saddle mats, a TV to watch the races, a set of scales and riding gear strewn around the floor.

The only feminine touch is a pair of open-toe heels standing neatly in a corner. What designer does the first women to ride a Melbourne Cup winner wear? The maker’s mark is too worn to be legible, which is probably just as well; on one unforgettable day in November, Payne showed us all not to put much stock in labels.

When Payne won the Melbourne Cup on a 100-1 chance called Prince Of Penzance, she did far more than win a horse race.

Her skilful, light touch in the saddle, followed by her blunt, “get stuffed’’ dismissal of all who had doubted that women hoops were made of strong enough stuff, shattered a stereotype of women in sport that has endured longer than the Cup itself.

Her embrace of Stevie Payne, both as a cherished brother and valued member of the training team that helped her win the ­nation’s most celebrated race, sent a powerful message to people who live with Down syndrome and other disabilities and endure the patronising attitudes of others.

It is for these reasons that Payne’s historic victory resonated with so many Australians and, ­indeed, readers of this newspaper, which has today named Michelle Payne as our Australian of the Year.

Payne says the first time she ­really understood what she had achieved was the morning after the Cup. For one blessed hour, she was back in her own house, with her head on her own pillow, having just finished one round of early morning media interviews and about to head across town for ­another.

A friend had sent her a song via Twitter, the same song she listened to every morning when she was sprinting and squatting and crunching her way to peak fitness in preparation for the Melbourne Cup. She popped in her ear buds and grinned as the opening guitar riff of Pat Benatar’s All Fired Up coursed through the tiny ­speakers. Then she started to cry.

“I burst into tears,’’ she says. “I realised that all those times I had dreamt about it and trained, it had now actually happened. That was the first time it really hit me. I still shake my head that it actually happened, that a lifelong dream has come true. It is just an incredible feeling.’’

Payne’s story is now the stuff of Australian sports lore: how she grew up near Ballarat as one of 10 brothers and sisters and followed seven of them into racing; how her mother died when she was a baby; how a race fall and serious head injury nearly ended her career; how she had to work harder than the boys to get and keep good rides; how she survived a push by some owners of Prince Of Penzance to put a male jockey in the saddle for the Cup.

POP’s win, like any in racing, was about more than the jockey. The horse was bought for not much and given even less chance. The trainer, Darren Weir, began his working life as a Berriwillock horsebreaker and arrived at Flemington by the lonely roads that lead from race tracks across country Victoria. Stevie Payne was the strapper on race day and had given the longshot a glimpse of a chance by drawing the preferred barrier one. By day’s end he had saddled a nation’s heart.

Then there were Michelle Payne’s unrehearsed, unforgettable words in the mounting yard, when surrounded by TV crews and radio mics, she gave voice to the frustrations of being a woman in the sport of kings. Those who supported her, she thanked; to everyone else: “Get stuffed, because they think women aren’t strong enough but we just beat the world.’’

Two months later, on a summer’s race day at Flemington, Payne is sharing the sparsely furnished jockey’s room with one other woman but this will soon change. Throughout Australia, one in every two apprentice jockeys is a girl. They are the future of the sport and many of them have thanked Payne for saying what she did, when she did, and how she did.

“It is probably a build-up over a lot of years for being begrudged for being a female jockey,’’ Payne says. “It wasn’t something that I planned to say. I guess at that moment, you don’t know what is going to come out of your mouth. It is just something that I’ve had to battle against. I don’t like to whinge about it because it is just the way it is. I’d rather prove everybody wrong.

“Since the win, the thing that has given me the best feeling is people were inspired by it. For me, that is really special.’’

Within hours of winning the Cup, Payne was swamped by national and international media requests, offered book deals and received offers of interest from film producers. Between celebrity luncheons and receptions and helicopter rides to country race meets, her well-worn heels have barely touched the ground. Melbourne University Press this week announced its plans to publish her autobiography.

Whether at big city meets or country tracks, a day at the races is now accompanied by requests for selfies and autographs. Payne is still working out how to balance the demands of being a Melbourne Cup winner and a working jockey; a twin task that is both exhausting and fun. “Look, it’s a great problem to have,’’ she says, laughing.

Weir is also back at Flemington this summer’s day. He chides Payne for holding up the show for more photographs. Behind the scenes, he is also chiding her to do more riding and track work. He wants her back at his stables, back on other horses. He wants her to be back aboard POP in next year’s Melbourne Cup.

Trainer and jockey haven’t seen each other much since Cup Day but they will forever share that moment, 200m out from the finish, when Prince Of Penzance had the Melbourne Cup won. “Think of the most amazing thing that has ever happened to you and triple it,’’ Weir says.

Payne is 30 years old and has been riding half her life. She says she’d like to keep riding for a couple more years. Now that she is a Melbourne Cup-winning jockey, the job doesn’t get any easier. She knows it; Weir knows it. You are only as good as your last winner, they both say. This day at Flemington, Payne has ridden a winner. It is a horse named Pattern, trained by Lloyd Williams.

She remembers all her winners, more than 700. They are all special. Riding a winner at any track is hard to do. She knows when she does a good job, the horse hardly feels her on its back. “I keep it simple,’’ she explains. “My whole idea of riding is you don’t interfere with their stride, breathing, anything. It is like they are riding free.’’

She knows when a horse has something special: a turn of foot, a toughness of heart, a natural athleticism. She calls it an X factor. Readers of The Australian know that Payne also has something special.

IN DEPTH: Australian of the Year