Jamie Melham has created history by riding Half Yours to victory in the $10 million Melbourne Cup.
A decade after Michelle Payne became the first female jockey to win the race that stops a nation, close friend Melham became the first to complete the Caulfield-Melbourne Cup double.
Half Yours burst clear in a thrilling finish at Flemington for father-son training duo Tony and Calvin McEvoy.
Two-time winner Joseph O’Brien’s Goodie Two Shoes was second, with Ciaron Maher-trained Middle Earth third.
French raider Presage Nocturne was smashed into $5.50 favouritism before the race but did not place.
Rain threatened to dampen spirits on Tuesday, but the Cup was run on a track that had been upgraded to a soft 5 rating.
Earlier, red-hot jockey Mark Zahra continued his outstanding Cup carnival form with two wins and a place in Tuesday’s first four races.
The 43-year-old scored aboard Party Crasher ($4.80) in the Grand Handicap and Different Gravy ($4.80) in the Tab Trophy.
It took Zahra’s tally to six wins and three places in 10 rides across the carnival, after he claimed the Group 1 Victoria Derby (Observer) and Coolmore Stud Stakes (Tentyris) among his four consecutive wins on Saturday.
Fellow star hoop James McDonald, who rode Pallaton to beat Zahra’s Street Artist in race four on Cup Day, pledged all his prize-money percentage from the meeting to the Tom Prebble fundraiser.
Prebble, the son of former champion jockey Brett Prebble, is in a wheelchair and on Saturday revealed a diagnosis of paraplegia after his fall at Warrnambool in September.
