Jamie Kah's fiancee lashes out as ugly new claims emerge after jockey charged by stewards

Jamie Kah's fiancee Ben Melham has lashed out at former jockey Sam Hyland over his criticism of her controversial ride in the McNeil Stakes at Caulfield last month. Kah has been charged by Racing Victoria stewards and will have to front the Victorian Racing Tribunal at a later date.

There's every chance she could be hit with a hefty suspension and miss the Spring Racing carnival (which includes the Melbourne Cup) as a result. Stewards charged Kah with breaching rule AR129 (2) that “a rider must take all reasonable and permissible measures throughout the race to ensure that the rider’s horse is given full opportunity to win or to obtain the best possible place in the field."

Kah was riding Letsfacethemusic when a gap opened up down the final straight, but she failed to push the envelope and backed down. Kah was coming third at the time but faded to fifth, leaving many to question whether she could've given more effort.

Some have pointed out the conditions were very windy at Caulfield that day and Kah might have been worried about how the other horses would have reacted if she's attempted to shoot the gap. But discussing the situation on SEN radio this week, Hyland said: "I don't care how windy it is, you've got to ride them out. It doesn't matter how many times you watch it, she doesn't move on it. The run was there. You don't take it, I don't understand."

Ben Melham fires back at fellow jockey Sam Hyland

Those comments haven't gone down well with Melham, himself a fellow jockey and Kah's fiancee. Melham pointed out that Kah was involved in a shocking accident last year that resulted her being hospitalised and placed in a coma. She missed several months before returning late last year.

"Maybe she didn't fancy being parked up in ICU again for the spring carnival," Melham wrote on a post featuring Hyland's comments. "We know you would have taken the gap Sam. You used to attempt them when they weren't even there."

Stewards said Kah “failed to ride her mount with sufficient vigour” on two occasions. They also allege she had no “purpose to improve her position” between two rival horses despite having “sufficient room” and no other impediments.

She told a stewards inquiry: "I saw it (a gap) moving in front of me and I don't know, I didn't feel comfortable taking the run. I don't take runs that aren't there and at the point in the race, I didn't feel like there was a run there for long enough to take. I don't know if I was riding with a lot of confidence. I just didn't feel like I rode that well."

Is Jamie Kah subject to more scrutiny than other jockeys?

Whether or not she should be suspended has been a big talking point in the horse racing world. On Wednesday, journalist Bren O'Brien suggested there's unfair scrutiny placed on Kah because she's become the golden girl of Australian racing over the last few years.

"It feels to me that there's a certain narrative around Jamie that wouldn't be necessarily talked about with other riders," he said on SEN. "I think she attracts more scrutiny than any other jockey in Australia." And pundit Ralph Horowitz has suggested similar.

Trainer Wayne Hawkes declared Kah is "no cheat" last week, saying a jockey 'hesitating' for a split-second isn't against the rules. And legendary jockey Damien Oliver also suggested Kah hadn't done anything wrong simply because she was over-cautious. "You can see there is a run there at times for Jamie Kah to take," he said on racing.com. "It was very windy there at Caulfield and you can see the horses were moving around a little bit. It looked like she could have shown a little bit more urgency to take that run.

"Jamie said later in the day she'd been a bit crook, and sometimes when that happens your decision-making is not as quick as it could be. It's a split-second decision and when the horses are moving around and it's windy, you're not always certain how they're going to react in front of you. So it's easier to say it (there was a run) when you're in here (the studio) than out there."