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When champion Adelaide trainer Tony McEvoy had a young jockey named Jamie Kah riding for him, he considered it a “legal form of cheating”, such was Kah’s talent in the saddle.
Together, they dominated South Australian racing – Kah winning three jockeys premierships, and McEvoy six trainers’ titles, before both decided to make Victoria home.
Jamie Kah can turn her form around quickly, says trainer Tony McEvoy.Credit: Joe Armao
For Kah, who moved at the start of 2019, that was just the beginning.
She quickly became the world’s top-ranked female jockey, and by October 2020 she was Victoria’s leading rider, which earned her a Melbourne Cup berth with Prince Of Arran the following month.
That season, starting August 2020 and finishing in July 2021, Kah became the first rider in Victoria to surpass 100 metropolitan winners, bringing up the ton in McEvoy’s white, blue and orange silks aboard Deep Speed at Caulfield.
She’ll don the same silks for McEvoy on young gun Veight on Saturday, in the $2 million Coolmore Stud Stakes, albeit in a vastly different vein of form. And, in Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup Kah will ride the Chris Waller-trained stayer More Felons.
But McEvoy believes Kah’s Derby Day ride could be the one that helps her rediscover the form that made her one of the best jockeys in the country.
The 27-year-old has had 126 rides since the start of August and won just 12 races, having spent five months out of the saddle following a terrifying fall at Flemington in mid-March which forced doctors to place her into an induced coma to reduce the bleeding on her brain.
That strike rate, less than one in 10, is well down on the 20.9 per cent strike rate she struck at in 2020-21, or the better-than-19 per cent in the two seasons which followed.
But McEvoy – one of Kah’s biggest supporters – said the results will turn.
Jamie Kah will ride Veight for Tony and Calvin McEvoy in Saturday’s group 1 Coolmore Stud Stakes.Credit: Joe Armao
“I don’t do social media, but I’ve been getting told about what social media is saying about her, which I think is very unfair and damaging,” McEvoy said.
“But I know she’s bigger than that, Jamie, and this could be the ride that’ll get her back on top.
“I think she’s riding nicely. I’ve been watching her quite a bit, and I think she’s riding nicely, and a few of the horses she’s ridden haven’t quite had a killer punch.
“Then it’s a confidence thing, and obviously, she’d be a little bit down on confidence, but I know she can turn it around, no problems.”
McEvoy said people were underestimating how difficult it was to return from a fall, particularly one as serious as Kah’s. The injuries were so significant that Kah had to Google her name to remind herself of who she was when she regained consciousness five days after the fall, thinking she was 18, still living in Adelaide.
“When I was riding, I had three race falls, and it does dent your confidence, it really does,” said McEvoy, who rode over 100 winners as an apprentice jockey.
“It takes a little bit of time to get back in the groove, and ask anyone who’s had a car crash, the next few times they drive in their car. Things take a bit of time, and I think people are being mean and very unfair.
“She’s hot property, that girl, and she’s a superstar athlete. She’ll bounce back when the time’s right.”
Tony McEvoy, pictured with Veight, who Jamie Kah will ride in the Coolmore Stud Stakes.Credit: Eddie Jim
Also hanging over Kah’s head, however, is a racing charge of bringing the sport into disrepute, for a photograph published in the media in which she was pictured with a white substance. She’ll face those charges in the Victorian Racing Tribunal on the Monday after the Melbourne Cup, more than four months after she was charged by stewards, due to a backlog of tribunal hearings.
It’s her second major indiscretion off the track, after she was one of five jockeys banned from riding in the 2021 spring racing carnival for three months after being caught at an Airbnb breaching Victoria’s COVID-19 lockdown laws, and after the government’s curfew hours. The significant penalty reflected how serious the industry saw the breach, given racing was one of the few sports allowed to continue through the pandemic.
Despite everything she’s been through, as well as the speculation around her lack of form, McEvoy said Kah seemed in a good headspace, days out from what’s certain to be her third opportunity in the Melbourne Cup. She’ll be one of three female jockeys in the race – along with Rachel King (Military Mission) and Hollie Doyle (Future History) – when she partners More Felons.
“I had a chat to Jamie the other day. She seems herself to me,” McEvoy said.
“I know her quite well, and I’m sure if Jamie had issues, I’m sure I’m the type of person she could talk to about [them], but she seems fine to me. I’ve got no hesitation her riding our horse in the big race.
“She’s a star, she’s got beautiful hands, and hoping they’ll really get on well together.”
Should Veight win on Saturday, it will bring the journey of Kah and McEvoy full circle. Before McEvoy joined his son Calvin in partnership, Kah rode in 315 races for him, winning a remarkable 86 times at a strike rate of 27.3 per cent, and more than $2.6 million in prizemoney.
Surprisingly, they haven’t yet partnered to win a group 1 race.
Tony McEvoy and Veight, ahead of Saturday’s Coolmore Stud Stakes.Credit: Eddie Jim
“Before I knew her, I kept watching her beat me, which I wasn’t enjoying, and I thought, ‘How do I get on the merry-go-round with her?’,” McEvoy reflected, having given Kah her first Cup week win at Flemington on Dollar For Dollar in 2017.
“We fought hard to get her to come and be our rider, and she did, and having her ride for me in Adelaide was a legal form of cheating, I thought. We had so much on the opposition.
“She’s got Dollar For Dollar at her farm now, and it’ll be lovely to see her back in our colours. She won her 100th metro winner [in the 2020-21 season] in our colours, which was a big occasion for her, and I’m sure she’ll do us all proud and do herself proud on Saturday.”
Veight ran second in the Caulfield Guineas over 1600 metres, but is also a winner at Flemington in the VRC Sires’, and resumed from a break to win over 1200 metres at Caulfield to kick off his campaign.
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