- Jockey Jamie Kah is determined to stay on the right path
- 2021 Covid breach and cocaine scandal didn’t help her image
- Also fortunate to recover from a race fall in March of 2023
Champion Aussie jockey Jamie Kah knew it was time to draw a line in the sand following her cocaine scandal last year.
Supremely talented in the saddle but also a party girl, Kah, 28, began to cut the negative people in her life.
She remains slightly uncomfortable at being labelled a ‘role model’ for other female hoops – but the Adelaide raised star is enjoying a simpler life these days as she prepares to marry fellow jockey Ben Melham early next year.
Kah also knows the race fall in March of 2023 at Flemington in Melbourne could have killed her after she was speared into the turf and spent time in a coma in hospital.
The cocaine scandal – just three months later – didn’t do her any favours either.
Champion Aussie jockey Jamie Kah knew it was time to grow up following her cocaine scandal last year (pictured right, with fiancé Ben Melham)
Kah is supremely talented in the saddle but also previously had a reputation as a party girl
Kah, 28, has ridden a whopping 1232 winners in her career – including 11 Group 1 triumphs
She also attracted headlines after breaching Covid lockdown restrictions back in 2021.
Day by day, Kah is becoming the best version of herself – and she couldn’t be happier.
‘Now I value life more, enjoying the good parts,’ she told News Corp.
‘My circle is a lot smaller now…just people that I find important and that care about me.
‘You’ve just got to trust the people around you.. and things like social media, Instagram and Twitter, I don’t look at it anymore.
‘My PA lady, she goes on my Instagram and deletes bad comments and bad things and blocks them so I don’t have to read them.’
Kah began her riding apprenticeship in 2011 after leaving school at 15.
Fast forward to 2024 and Kah has ridden a whopping 1232 winners in her career – including 11 Group 1 races.
She can’t wait to marry Melham and finds the female uptake in racing – especially in Victoria when it comes to apprentices the past few years – ‘crazy.’
‘Obviously you have to get the results, but I feel like hopefully I’ve shown females in the industry now that, as long as you believe that you’re good enough, and you go on and ride winners, you ride well, they [trainers] will put you on,’ she said.
‘When I started, my boss at the time.. he put me on every single horse of his….there should be more people like that around.’
On Saturday, Kah has multiple rides at Flemington and she will be feeling confident after last weekend winning the Group 1 Australian Guineas on board Southport Tycoon at the same track.
