Michelle Payne: Who is the jockey who beat 100-1 odds to become the first woman to win the Melbourne Cup?

Payne said "Everyone else can get stuffed [who] think women aren’t good enough." after taking the top spot

(Getty)

Michelle Payne made history as she became the first female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup, beating 100-1 odds of a victory and making a huge impact on the 155-year history of the prestigious race.

Payne said the win was a “dream come true”, and won on the New Zealand-bred horse Prince of Penzance.

She was an outsider for much of the race, but eventually beat more favoured contenders Max Dynamite and Criterion, who finished second and third respectively.

She comes from a big family of jockeys

Payne was born in 1985 to Paddy and Mary near Victoria, Australia.

She is the youngest daughter of ten children. She is the eighth of the Payne children to enter the world of horse racing, following her five sisters and two brothers who have pursued careers in the saddle.

Another brother, Steve, who has Down’s Syndrome, is employed by Payne’s trainer, Darren Weir, and works in the stables looking after the horses before and after races.

She wants to take on the chauvinists in competitive riding

After winning the race, and being only the fourth woman in history to compete in the Melbourne Cup, Payne said she wanted to change attitudes that women couldn’t compete as jockeys.

“My sister Margaret and I both had a feeling we would win this race. It’s such a chauvinistic sport, a lot of the owners wanted to kick me off. Everyone else can get stuffed [who] think women aren’t good enough.”

Coincidentally, Payne raced in purple, green and white - the colours of the suffragette movement.

She’s had her fair share of injuries

As well as the odd broken wrist, Payne was hit hard by a head injury when, aged 18, she fell headfirst from her mount, fracturing her skull and causing severe bruising to her brain.

She was subsequently sidelined for months and said she had to cry herself to sleep every night.

Despite a doctor explaining that another fall would cause more severe damage, Payne went back to riding, choosing her words carefully when discussing the prognosis with her dad. “'The doctor said to me if you have another fall, your brain's not as strong and you'll be worse off,'' she recalls. ''Dad asked me what he said, and I told him the doctor said my brain was strong again and it was OK for me to ride.''

Payne was six months old when her mother died in a car crash

As a result, Paddy Payne raised the ten children himself, although Michelle’s older sisters Theresa and Bernadette took over mothering duties while she was a baby.

“[Therese] was the motherly figure, and still sort of is,” she admitted in a 2009 interview. “She used to get up in the middle of the night and feed me, then fall asleep in school.

“I used to buy her Mother’s Day gifts at school when everyone would take $2 and buy something for their mum.”