Michelle. Our Belle.
She took Australian racing’s ultimate prize, proved the doubters wrong and told them to ‘get stuffed’ anyway. She smiled her dazzling smile, she hugged her brother Stevie and we all fell in love with Michelle Payne. When Michelle rode the bush-trained, 100-1 roughie Prince of Penzance past the winning post in Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup she confounded a few of the horse’s owners who wanted a bloke to ride the gelding, she smashed through ‘chauvinist’ racing’s glass ceiling and announced a new royal order in the Sport of Kings. Queens rule. With millions of Australians fixed on this pocket powerhouse, the book opened on her extraordinary story. The nine brothers and sisters, the scarring loss of her mother, a family raised among horses by a battling father, the injury that almost ended her career. The national spotlight was thrown on an amazing and highly-competitive bunch, but there’s a great deal we still don’t know about this trailblazing Aussie. Sunday Night’s Melissa Doyle sits down with the remarkable Michelle Payne for an extensive interview on the highs, the lows and the secrets that have taken her to the top of her game.
Australia on Ice
It has become the most pervasive and, arguably, the most destructive drug ever to be unleashed. Ice. And it’s rapidly climbed the ladder to infect and often ravage families from all levels of society. Northern Territory Police Minister Peter Chandler is responsible for the officers who enforce drugs laws in the Top End and yet even he hasn’t been able to keep methamphetamine from reaching his own family and gripping his eldest son. Peter and his wife Robyn have watched ice turn their boy into a desperate thief and they worry the drug will kill him. Young mum Casey Veal lost her beautiful baby boy to an ice-addled home invader. NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione says no-one is immune. So, what can be done to stop this horrific drug from claiming a generation or more? I
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