FEATURE
HALF YOURS: HISTORY MADE In the spring of 2025, everything the McEvoy family had built across three generations converged in a single horse. Half Yours, a modestly bred five-year-old gelding purchased at an online auction for $305,000 without an owner lined up at the time, became the 13th horse in the 165-year history of the Melbourne Cup to complete the Caulfield Cup–Melbourne Cup double. The Lexus Melbourne Cup win, by two and three-quarter lengths from Goodie Two Shoes, was the eighth Group 1 for the combined father-son partnership and the first for either in the Melbourne metropolitan area. Jockey Jamie Melham, who has ridden for the McEvoys for 15 years, made history of her own, becoming the first female jockey to complete the Caulfield–Melbourne Cup double, and only the second woman to win the Lexus Melbourne Cup, following Michelle Payne’s win a decade earlier on Prince Of Penzance. WHAT NEXT? For Tony, the Lexus Melbourne Cup win opened a door he had been trying to nudge ajar for years – access to the European staying market. Buying horses bred to stay has always been expensive, and convincing ownership syndicates to back a long program toward the Lexus Melbourne Cup is a harder sell than a spring sprinter. Half Yours has changed that conversation. Calvin, who married fiancée Demi Ryan weeks after the Lexus Melbourne Cup triumph, now effectively leads the day- to-day operations in Victoria, including a number of Godolphin horses. From Streaky Bay to Flemington, from hay bales and dirt tracks to the mounting yard at the world’s greatest staying race, the McEvoy family has spent 60 years accumulating the kind of knowledge that cannot be bought – only handed down. The Cup just confirmed what those on the inside already knew.
Calvin McEvoy is the new generation of success. (George Sal/Racing Photos)
Still successfully riding today, Kerrin has also won two Everests, a Caulfield Cup and a Golden Slipper. The community of Streaky Bay is so proud, that it has even immortalised him in the form of a bronze statue on the town’s foreshore. CALVIN: THE NEXT GENERATION Calvin McEvoy did not simply walk into a training licence. He worked through the ranks in Newmarket in England, where he served as pupil assistant to trainer David Simcock at one of the sport’s most historic training centres. Returning to Australia, he was placed on the training licence with his father while still an assistant, taking primary responsibility for the Adelaide-based horses. The formal partnership between Tony and Calvin was registered from September 2019. Their first runner as a combined entry, Quaffany, won at Sandown Hillside on day one. The operation now runs across two hubs – Ballarat and Flemington – with roughly 70 horses based at Ballarat.
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