Queen of Victoria – An Irishman’s Diary about Michelle Payne and the Melbourne Cup

What a gorgeous story that was in the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday when Michelle Payne made history by becoming the first woman jockey to win “the race that stops Australia”.

It would have been enough that she did it on a no-hoper, the 100-1 Prince of Penzance; and that she had first needed to triumph over male chauvinism, including the opposition of some of the horse’s owners, who didn’t want her; and that in post-race interviews, she managed both to smile sweetly and tell critics of female riders to “get stuffed”.

On top of all that, however, she made a point of sharing the glory with her brother Stevie, who happens to have Down Syndrome but was intimately involved in the win on two levels – as the horse’s “strapper” (groom) and as the person who, auspiciously, drew the number 1 stall.

The jockey and her brother are the youngest and second youngest of 10 siblings – raised by their father, after their mother died in a car crash when Michelle was a baby – a fact that has made them especially close. If you could watch them celebrate without welling up a little, you probably need help.

One of the side-effects of their great moment was to overshadow what was nearly another Irish win in the race. Which said, there must be a bit of the old country somewhere in the Paynes’ background too. Their father is “Paddy”, their mother was “Mary”, and the siblings include a “Bernadette”, a “Brigid” (now dead), and a “Therese”. Maybe Sr Mary Gonzaga Barry, a Wexford nun who pioneered the education of girls in Victoria (although she probably didn’t foresee them becoming professional jockeys) would claim some credit too. At any rate, Michelle Payne went to the school she founded – Loreto College, Ballarat. But that aside, this was a thoroughly Australian win.

I was there for the great race once, albeit not in Melbourne. Instead, on the first Tuesday of November, 1988, I found myself watching it on television in Perth. And I suppose Perth stopped for the event too, although it could be a quiet town even when busy, so it was hard to tell.

Some weeks afterwards, working my way around the country, I crossed the Nullarbor Desert – 36 hours on a bus – and stayed for a while near Ballarat before heading to Melbourne, where I spent several months working shifts in a zinc smelter.

My all-male colleagues were in general very chauvinistic, in the original, patriotic sense of the word, at least. They held (and at the same time shared, frequently) the view that Australia was “the best bloody country in the world”. But they were especially proud of their sports stars, as well they might be.

My year there coincided with an Ashes cricket series when, as was usual, the Australians were rampant. And exposed constantly to the local jingoism, I found myself suffering from a strange mental condition.

I didn’t immediately identify it. Then a shocking diagnosis emerged – I was secretly rooting for England (the illness was successfully treated by a return to Ireland in time to watch BBC coverage of the 1990 World Cup).

Anyway, the fierce partisanship of colleagues led me into the occasional stupid argument in Melbourne, especially during the long night shifts. And the most stupid of these arguments, I recall, was one about the respective merits of Irish and Australian racehorses. Now this was entirely moot at the time, because Australian and European horses never competed together then. But I protested that Irish trainers, jockeys, and horses did at least test themselves against British and French opposition, and occasionally American. None of which logic helped me win the argument.

Then of course, four years later, Dermot Weld embarked on his famous voyage into the horse-racing unknown. And when he and Vintage Crop won the Melbourne Cup at the first attempt, I experienced near-toxic levels of schadenfreude – all the more dangerous because I had no outlet, being back in Dublin by then. Only heroic restraint prevented me tracking down my former colleagues and sending them early Christmas cards.

Weld won again in 2002, and those remain the only Irish (or indeed European) successes in the race, although there was nearly a third this week.

Had his jockey found a gap in the finishing straight without having to take that violent detour, Willie Mullins’s runner would likely have bridged the ¾-length distance by which he finished second. But much as the great Carlow trainer might have deserved it, I’m glad that didn’t happen. As he’d have been the first to admit, the good guys won.