This group 1 racing stat proves Ben Melham and Jamie Melham are inseparable on the race track

But trainer Clinton McDonald has a unique association with the Melhams.

His last group 1 winner, Hayasugi, was ridden by Jamie in the 2024 Blue Diamond Stakes, while he is hoping that Ben will ride his next when he hops aboard Angel Capital on Saturday.

“They are great friends of mine, and they do plenty of work for me,” McDonald said.

“Ben rides a majority of them, and then Jamie is there if Ben can’t make the weight. I have a great relationship with both of them.”

The Cranbourne-based McDonald said Ben was his stable’s go-to rider and described the 21-time group 1-winning hoop as a good judge of horses.

“Ben’s a terrific rider. I love his style, [he’s] so strong in the finish,” McDonald said.

“He is very good with form and the position you need to be in a race. Like [Mark] Zahra and those good lads, they can sort of sense what’s happening in front of them.

“We work well together as a team and I think that’s been shown over the last couple of months – our strike rate and placement of horses.

“We trial them and have a good chat where horses should be and where they should run. We haven’t won a group 1, so it would be very sweet to get one with him.”

McDonald said Jamie rode Hayasugi, which was euthanised after surgery complications in December, in last year’s Blue Diamond because her husband could not make the weight (55kg).

“Jamie is just a natural horsewoman who just goes with the horse and as we see, the horses just keep running for her,” McDonald said.

Another trainer fully aware of Jamie’s abilities is Goldrush Guru’s trainer, Andrew Gluyas.

The South Australian teamed up with the superstar jockey to win last year’s Victoria Derby during Melbourne Cup week – the 15th of her 16 group 1 victories.

But the memorable victory did not come without its drama. There was a moment during the build-up to last year’s race that Gluyas started considering contingency plans for a replacement jockey.

Two races earlier, Jamie had been ruled unfit to ride because her mount, Hurry Curry, threw its head back on the way to the barriers and smashed her in the nose.

“Just for a minute you think she might not be available because she will have to go through some sort of concussion protocols,” Gluyas recalled this week.

“But when she walked back into the mounting yard, I thought she was looking alright. I think she went up to James Cummings, she was riding one of their sprinters, Traffic Warden, in the next race.

“Then I saw her with the saddle, and she looked OK to me, so I thought, ‘We were on, no worries’.”

They were definitely on. Despite her swollen and bloodied nose, the injured jockey and Goldrush Guru won the 2500m derby by almost two lengths.

“They are tough people,” Gluyas said. “Jockeys get knocked and it’s a hard job. You’ve got to be pretty resilient, and she is.”

Come 4.15pm on Saturday, the Melhams will meet as a married couple for the fourth time in a group 1 event.

Victoria Racing Club’s new marketing chief Nikki Clarkson, appointed on Thursday, will be one who would welcome another photo finish.

A Melham-Melham dead heat. You can’t buy that sort of publicity.

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