Top jockey Melham faces multiple gambling charges

Racing Victoria stewards have hit one of the country's leading riders, Melbourne-based Ben Melham, with a number of charges, alleging that he gambled more than $21,000 on a series of bets over a six-month period, some in races in which he was riding.

Melham is charged with making the bets between March 2019 - when he was off with injury - and September 2019, by which time he had returned to race riding.

The allegations have rocked the tight-knit racing world, which is managing to continue operating during the coronavirus crisis while all other sports have shut down.

Jockeys betting is not unknown and several have been charged in the past. But Melham is the biggest name to be in the gambling spotlight since 2012, when champion rider Damien Oliver was outed for eight months after admitting to placing a $10,000 bet via a third party on a rival horse in a race in which he rode in 2010.

The charges against Melham stipulate that he placed bets through his partner, Karlie Dales' betting account and that on one occasion he placed $3000 into her account at a hotel on a day when he was sidelined through injury. Some of the bets were in Singapore.

He is also charged - along with Ms Dale - of giving false or misleading evidence at an inquiry.

Melham, 32, is widely regarded as one of the most talented riders in the state and as recently as Saturday was in the headlines for winning the feature race, the VRC St Leger, in a driving finish aboard the Gai Waterhouse-trained Sacramento.

He has won 17 group one contests - including the Golden Slipper aboard She Will Reign in 2017 - and partnered 1170 winners in a career that began when he was apprenticed to Darren Weir, the now disgraced former champion trainer, who was disqualified for four years in 2019. His first group one success was aboard Black Caviar, which he rode when regular pilot Luke Nolen was unavailable.