Celine Gaudray still remembers walking up trainer Pat Carey’s driveway with her dad 10 years ago to see whether he might have a part-time job for her in the stable.
The 14-year-old was growing up alongside her two siblings Elidjo and Julie on the family farm in Carrum Downs with her French parents Bernard and Claudia, who had met as adults in Australia before settling Down Under.
Jockey Celine Gaudray at home in Skye ahead of her maiden Melbourne Cup ride on Torranzino on Tuesday.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
Somewhere in the back of Gaudray’s teenage mind was an idea – she wanted to become a jockey.
Already a go-getter who attacked what was in front of her with flair and dare, Gaudray was a sports-loving kid. She tried her hand at everything before suddenly developing a love for horses when she turned 13 and beginning show jumping.
But horse racing? That was a different world, unfamiliar to her and her family.
“I was a bit of a late bloomer when it came to horses. Even though I grew up on a farm, I didn’t take a lot of interest, but I started to get into it at 13 when my dad bought me my first pony,” Gaudray said.
“It has turned into a drug now.”
That addiction to horses and riding morphed into a love of racing and going fast. An aptitude for hard work, a huge amount of natural talent and a willingness to take risks has led Gaudray into the top ranks of Victoria’s next wave of young jockeys.
Trainer Paul Preusker has Geelong Cup-winner Torranzino ready for the Melbourne Cup.Credit: Jason South
On Tuesday, just five years after her first race ride in a maiden at Moe in June 2020, she will ride in her first Melbourne Cup aboard the Paul Preusker-trained Torranzino. When the gates open, Gaudray will become just the 11th woman to ride in the Cup’s history.
“She’s gifted in a lot of ways on horseback. She has a good understanding of horse movement, is incredible at riding horses over jumps and jumping big fences on horses bareback,” Carey said.
“For a girl her age she was pretty fearless and ready to advance her riding at an early age. She was a bit daring.”
Gaudray has a winning laugh too.
It lands as regularly as her mounts on raceday (30 per cent of her rides have finished in the placings) and emerges as soon as she recalls the education she had working with Carey and his wife Cheryl as she learnt the skills needed to become a jockey.
Carey paired her up with a former racehorse I Maximus, a stable favourite who was smart enough to be reliable but in the trainer’s words, “not bombproof”. It meant whoever was riding him needed to be on their game when on his back.
Gaudray as an apprentice in 2021.Credit: Getty Images
“He was a strong, older horse, but he still knew what a racetrack was and he did bolt off on me a few times and made me a stronger rider,” Gaudray said.
Underneath the smile is a tough sportswoman, a person who had a long apprenticeship due to a number of injuries at both track work and in races, finally out-riding her claim this time last year.
In just her fourth race ride she suffered a fracture in her back and injured her knee when she tumbled off Midas Man on the dirt at Pakenham.
Three months later she got right back on the horse, literally, when she rode her first winner on the Carey-trained Tippitywichit at Traralgon.
“I had a rough start to my apprenticeship. I had quite a few injuries at track work. Pat had a few scary horses and I would hold on for dear life,” Gaudray said.
“During that [fourth] race I fractured my back and my knee but before that I did my foot, my knee, my wrist, my coccyx, the list goes on.”
The run of injuries had nothing to do with her riding ability.
Nor did they deter Gaudray, who revelled in the environment and never felt an attack of nerves.
“I am super, super competitive. I love winning, I just love going out there and giving my horse every chance to win the race,” Gaudray said.
Carey has taught multiple apprentices. He knew Gaudray had what it would take to make it in the often brutal, relentless world of being a jockey.
“From the time she started to ride she had polish, she was a good rider. She had to learn about racing. She did not have the racing smarts, but she was a natural for the competition, and she had great style, and she knew horses well,” Carey said.
“[She is a] natural lightweight, incredible balance and acrobatic ability, [on the] trampoline, [doing] somersaults and tumbles and very good core strength.”
Gaudray at home.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
That strength was on display one day at apprentice school under former jockeys Alf Matthews and Darren Gauci’s tutelage, when she was challenged to an arm wrestle alongside eight of her peers – a bunch of male and female apprentices.
“I wrestled one and beat one and they all wanted to have a go and I beat them all,” Gaudray said.
The giggle returns as she tells the story. It feels like the laugh is never far away.
Her positive outlook has helped her work through the inevitable bumps along the way, her name finding headlines for the wrong reasons before she had really started.
She was suspended for three months in 2021 after being part of the now infamous jockeys’ party at a Mornington Airbnb during Victoria’s COVID-19 lockdown, an incident Carey suspects helped Gaudray recognise where the limits were to what she could and couldn’t do in a highly regulated industry.
Gaudray doesn’t shy away from the incident but says it’s more the business itself than the incident that has influenced her approach to life.
“In general this industry ensures you mature quickly just because you are with professional people and there is a lot of money involved and you have to be in top form to get around it all,” Gaudray said.
“I would not say that particular event matured me but just racing in general.”
Rider Emily Brown takes Torranzino for a run on a bush track.Credit: Jason South
Cup-winning rider Michelle Payne is a fan. She was rapt to see Gaudray land a ride in the Cup.
“She is a very good rider. She’s very likeable as a person and a rider so that helps obviously to gain opportunities and then you just need a bit of luck on your side. I was the same age when I had my first ride for Bart Cummings [in 2009 on Allez Wonder] and all those feelings came back,” Payne said.
Those who know Gaudray well say she is quiet and happiest with her showjumping horses such as Felix and her fiance Ethan Brown, who will ride Ciaron Maher’s Middle Earth in the Cup.
That laugh returns when asked whether that is true as Gaudray admits she is not sure Brown is happiest around her horses.
“Ethan doesn’t really like it, but he will come wherever I drag him to,” Gaudray said.
Such cheekiness has probably helped her to connect with Torranzino, a lightweight Cup chance that can be difficult to ride. Gaudray says Preusker, who trained Surprise Baby into fifth place in the 2019 Cup and 13th in 2020, has done a remarkable job to unlock the six-year-old gelding’s talent.
“He was not an easy horse early doors … this time in, he has got rid of all those bad habits and I feel like I have formed a really good relationship with the horse and I feel like we get on really well,” Gaudray said.
Carey says many people at Racing Victoria, the apprentice school and her peers have helped Gaudray realise her talent. He is an admirer and proud that the apprentices who pass through his stable can still walk in the back door of his house and make themselves at home.
Gaudray remains grateful and connected to those who have helped along the way. “Pat was the ultimate best master I could have had. I always pop in and have a cup of coffee with him,” she said.
Carey remains in her corner, his family a solid base for the young people as they mature. But as Tuesday beckons he knows Gaudray will handle the moment.
“It’s great to pat them on the back when they are winning but the most important thing is to be there to support them when it all falls apart,” Carey said.
“It is a mentally tortuous business where you are getting heat from a lot of different areas. One thing about Celine is she is mentally tough and able to cope. She is not phased by the enormity of the task.”
Payne remains the only woman to have ridden a Melbourne Cup winner but Gaudray, Jamie Melham and Rachel King are as good a chance as any heading to the barriers on Tuesday.
“I’m so excited,” Gaudray said.
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