Jamie Kah led Prince of Arran to a third place on her Melbourne Cup debut, but the 24-year-old has been called in for two critical moments in the race that may have cost her victory.
Prince of Arran has become a cult hero in Australia after performing consistently great things including second place in the Melbourne Cup last year and third place in the 2018 big race.
He stormed home at the finish and looked like the only horse in the field with the aim power to chase the runaway leaders Twilight Payment and Tiger Moth, but lost track when the first two caught on.
It left Kah, who started from the inside after a dream move by Barrier One, in the line of fire after the race.
Group 1 winning jockey Dwayne Dunn, who co-hosted coverage of the racing show in America, criticized the debutant for failing to use Barrier 1 properly.
“If Jamie Kah had had her time again, she would have been more inclined to use that barrier and bring him closer in the race,” said Dunn. “He was in that midfield position, a bit of a ruckus, shuffled back, she was able to free herself from it and get to the clear opening, but in retrospect she would have liked to have ridden him earlier with greater urgency and brought him closer to the top. “
But that wasn’t the only moment she wanted back.
Punters.com.au expert Nick Hluchaniuk said Kah also had the decision to move off the track about 600m before the race where Prince of Arran was caught in heavy traffic.
“After being stopped in the curve, he flew to the finish line in third with the fastest section of 400 to 200 meters and 200 meters. In hindsight it’s always easy, but if Kah had stayed on the fence, a run would have popped up when Finche got tired on the straight, ”wrote Hluchaniuk. “It was the run that Glen Boss took against Sir Dragonet.”
Even Kah’s mother, Karen, said in a video the jockey shared on her family’s social media while watching the race, “she should have got out earlier.”
Brad Davidson, form analyst at Sky Racing, also said Kah left her run “a bit late” but attributed it to bad luck.
“He was very unlucky,” said Kah after the race. “He really deserved it. He just wasn’t lucky on the turn. “
Prince of Arran’s trainer, Charlie Fellowes, went one step further and thanked Kah for a “nice ride.”
“He was behind a horse wall at the wrong time and got out a little late. He flew. He drove another huge race. He’s an amazing horse, ”said Fellowes.
“In the Melbourne Cup you can’t avoid finishing third. I’m not gutted at all. I am incredibly proud of him. I felt like we stopped our run at a really bad point in the race and how he ran home in the end, it didn’t have to go too much further and we would have given Twilight Payment something to think about. “
Herald Sun’s sports writer Glenn McFarlane also described it as a “great ride” from Kah, who entered the race in the shape of her life after driving four different winners on Cox Plate Day.
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Lloyd Williams, who won seven Melbourne Cups as the owner of Twilight Payment, put it simply on Monday morning when assessing Prince of Arran’s chances in Tuesday’s race: “You couldn’t find anyone who drives better in the world.”
No doubt she will return next year and hopefully Prince de Arran as well.
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