- 11 winners returned home in 32 starts throughout the carnival
- He won an astonishing amount of money for his troubles.
- He still thinks he could have done better.
Horse racing owners and connections have had to count their riches or calculate the cost of the Melbourne Cup Racing Carnival, but one jockey just laughs all the way to the bank.
James McDonald couldn’t find a winning run in the Melbourne Cup, but his carnival was his most successful to date with 11 wins, his biggest haul and surpassing his 2021 personal best.
McDonald, ever the perfectionist, was not entirely impressed with that effort, even as he dominated all the other riders.
“It should have been probably 15, (because) I slaughtered four, I got 11 right,” he said.
How much money did McDonald make from his 11 wins?
James McDonald riding Atishu celebrates winning the TAB Empire Rose Stakes on Derby Day
McDonald also took victory on Via Sistina in the Champion Stakes Day at Flemington.
Jockeys earn five percent of a horse’s total prize money, along with a base riding fee that ranges from a few hundred to several thousand dollars per race.
That means McDonald would have earned more than $320,000 for four days of work at Flemington, including Derby Day, Melbourne Cup Day, Oaks Day and Stakes Day.
While McDonald made an incredible amount of money during the Spring Carnival, racing purists were quick to point out that she could have made even more in the days of the sling.
“Old school was the jockey got another 5% cash as a sling,” posted one racing fan.
“Slings would have given him more,” added another.
A sling was a predetermined percentage of a win that owners and their connections used to pay jockeys with.
McDonald, pictured speaking to NRL legend and horse racing reporter Billy Slater, won more than $320,000 in four days at the Melbourne Cup Carnival.
For more than a century of racing in Australia, it was the main source of income for jockeys across the country.
However, in recent years the practice has become illegal and all payments require proper documentation for racing authorities and the tax collector.
Jockey Dean Holland is an unfortunate hoop who found out the hard way that the sling is no longer acceptable in Australian racing.
Holland and co-owner Peter Ferne were fined $200 each by Racing Victoria stewards after Ferne paid the jockey a $100 slingshot for winning the $16,000 Mixx FM Handicap in 2016.
Now McDonald is chasing more Group 1 glory in Saturday’s Thousand Guineas aboard favorite Aeliana in the $1.5 million race for three-year-old fillies.
“She’s improved, a little sleepy, but her performance at the Carbine Club was excellent,” McDonald said.
‘A lot of the fillies are going through the 1400m race (The Vanity), but she ran the boys over a mile and took them down, so she looks pretty well placed.
“Some of the fillies in that 1400m race might be a little suspect in the mile, from the way they ran the other day and what their breeding suggests, but she ticked that box, so that’s not a concern “.