Jamie Kah rides from an Adelaide Hills background to become world's top-ranked female jockey in 2020-21
Jamie Kah surpassed women 2015 Melbourne Cup winner Michelle Payne’s five career Group One race wins.
Images courtesy Racing and Sports, Getty Images
Jamie Kah, the Adelaide Hills daughter of two Olympic speed skaters, in 2021 became the world’s highest-ranked female jockey in 2020. Kah was the first jockey in Victorian metropolitan horse racing to score 100 wins in a season, in 2021.
Kah grew up in Mount Pleasant in the Adelaide Hills, where she began working at a friend’s stables when she was 13 and had some equestrian experience. Kah began her jockey apprenticeship in 2011 and had her first race in March 2012 at Streaky Bay and her first win a fortnight later at Clare.
Kah made a whirlwind rise to prominence while still an apprentice in 2012-13 by winning the Adelaide jockeys’ premiership and the John Letts medal for riding excellence. Kah’s biggest victory came aboard Sistine Demon in the 2014 Group III Victoria Handicap at Caulfield. In 2016-17, she enjoyed a stunning season as she set an Australian record for the most wins by a female rider in a single season. She also claimed the Adelaide metropolitan jockey of the year, country and provincial jockey of the year and South Australia’s jockey of the year awards.
After winning the Adelaide premiership for a third time in 2017-18, Kah moved to Melbourne early in 2019. She soon dispelled doubts that she wasn’t physically strong enough to match it with male jockeys in the last 150 metres of races. Her first Group One race win was on Harlem in the Australian Cup at Flemington in March.
In 2021, Kah was again the world’s top-ranked female jockey and the only one in the top 100 for all jockeys, rising from 77th in 2020 to 41st. As of mid July 2021, Kah had ridden 1,020 winners, including six Group One victories. Kah surpassed women 2015 Melbourne Cup winner Michelle Payne’s five career Group One wins.
At Morphettville in 2022, Kah won her first Adelaide Cup on Daqiansweet Junior and rode five winners at the meeting.
Kah’s father John, mother Karen (Gardiner) and uncle Danny were Olympic speed skaters.
