Run The Numbers: Autumn leaves no doubt as to Kah’s elite status

No jockey has lived life as much in the spotlight as Jamie Kah over the past couple of years. The giddy heights of being Australia’s most successful female jockey have been complemented by life-threatening falls and personal scandals.

The rollercoaster would be enough to keep any athlete below their best, but doubts about Kah’s ability to re-ascend the mountain as one of Australia’s premier jockeys have been dispelled in 77 days of extraordinary riding.

When you consider that she didn’t even get back to the saddle until August, and even then, under the very public spotlight of the investigation into the ‘white powder’ scandal, it is remarkable to think she is back at her very best just nine months later.

It is little more than 14 months since that horrific fall at Flemington left her in a coma for six days with bleeding on the brain and a broken wrist, foot and nose.

Her spring comeback was highly scrutinised and no doubt, her confidence levels when initially back in the saddle were not to her usual high standards.

She rode one winner from 13 rides in August, eight from 69 in September and three from 44 in October. Across that period, her winning strike rate was only 9.5 per cent, nearly half of what it has been through the rest of her career (18 per cent).

Her first stakes victory back didn’t come until the Flemington carnival. However, a double on Derby day did point the way forward to better times and she backed that up with a stakes treble a week later on Champions Day.

Across November, she had eight winners back at that career strike rate of 18 per cent, and while that dropped to 15 per cent (five winners) and 13 per cent (five winners) in December and January, a distraction-free autumn promised much greater returns.

And that is exactly what has evolved. Kah rode seven winners at 20 per cent in February, 11 at 22 per cent in March and then 13 at 24 per cent in April. May has seen her notch four more wins at 19 per cent.

All four of her racetrack wins so far in May have been in Group races, including her two Group 1 wins in Adelaide over the past two weeks, with victories in the South Australian Derby on Coco Sun and The Goodwood aboard Benedetta.

Since February 1, Kah has ridden 35 winners from 165 rides, a winning percentage of 21.2 per cent. Incredibly, over half of those winners, 18, have been in stakes races.

Jamie Kah – Month by Month 2023/24

Kah’s current streak really began when she guided Hayasugi to an upset win in the Blue Diamond Stakes on February 24. A week later, she claimed the Australian Guineas on Southport Tycoon, before making it three elite successes in as many weeks when Cylinder claimed the Newmarket Handicap.

That success was particularly significant for Kah as it marked the anniversary of the Flemington fall which could so easily have cost her life. It did cost her a Group 1 victory at the time, with In Secret, who she was booked on, winning the Newmarket later that day, with the ride taken by Dean Holland.

Tragically, Holland died in a race fall the following month and the sight of Kah marking this year’s Newmarket win in the close company of Holland’s wife and his four children was one of the most poignant on an Australian racetrack in many a year.

Two days later, Kah was back in her ‘hometown’ of Adelaide riding a treble, including two stakes winners.

Group 1 victories may have eluded her in the Sydney carnival, but she still collected six stakes wins, including the Group 2 Arrowfield Sprint on Joliestar, across four weeks.

She then headed back to Adelaide with a key milestone to tick off her resume, a Group 1 victory in her home state of South Australia. She already had elite victories in Victoria (10), New South Wales (one) and Queensland (one).

The first day, with two Group 1 opportunities, proved fruitless, with Coco Sun third in the Australasian Oaks and Zapateo ninth in the Robert Sangster.

But backing up on Coco Sun in last week’s South Australian Derby, she finally got her wish. Significantly, it was on a horse trained by Tony McEvoy and his son Calvin. Kah owed much of her Adelaide breakthrough as a younger jockey to McEvoy.

Then on Saturday, she made it a second Adelaide Group 1 win aboard the Jason Warren-trained Benedetta, who proved too strong for her rivals in The Goodwood. That made it five wins from her last 18 Group 1 rides.

It puts her equal second on the Australian jockey rankings this season when it comes to elite wins, behind only James McDonald (13) and level with Mark Zahra and Opie Bosson. It is also her most successful Group 1 season.

McDonald is far and away the leading jockey in the country at the moment – he had another four winners at a feature Sunshine Coast meeting on Saturday – but Kah is right in the mix for the silver medal on current form.

While she has seemingly already endured a lifetime of experiences in the saddle, she is still only 28. Only two younger jockeys have ridden multiple Group 1 winners in Australia this year, Michael Dee and Tyler Schiller.

With 14 Group 1 victories under her belt, she is by far the most successful female jockey in Australian history, with Michelle Payne and Rachel King second on five apiece and Clare Lindop on four.

And after her latest success, eight of the 66 Group 1 races in Australia this year, 12.1 per cent, have been won by female jockeys. That is a record in any Australian season, surpassing the previous best of four in 2020/21 and 2022/23.

Australian Group 1 wins by female jockeys per season