Jamie Melham had to outmanoeuvre her jockey husband Ben in a seesawing Melbourne Cup field before she found a crucial gap that allowed her to ride to glory.

The first woman to land the Caulfield-Melbourne Cup double revealed she was on the verge of screaming at her partner to get out of her road as she loomed up behind his tiring mount, Smokin’ Romans, at the top of the famous Flemington straight.

But her brave Australian-bred galloper Half Yours took the decision out of her hands, ducking to the inside through the narrowest of gaps and pushing her husband aside. From then on, the race was hers.

“There was a gap this big next to him [Ben] and I was going to yell at him, but my horse was just going too good anyway,” she explained.

“He pulled me through the next gap, [then] pulled me th

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