Jockey James McDonald reveals the CRAZY amount of money he earned in just one week

Horse racing owners and connections need to count their fortunes or calculate the cost of the Melbourne Cup Racing Carnival, but one jockey alone is laughing all the way to the bank.

James McDonald couldn’t find a winning ride in the Melbourne Cup itself, but his carnival was his most successful to date with 11 wins – his biggest ever win and bettering his 2021 personal best.

McDonald, ever a perfectionist, was not entirely impressed with that effort, even though he dominated all the other jockeys.

‘It probably should have been 15, [because I] “I killed four, I got 11 right,” he said.

How much money has McDonald made with his eleven wins?

McDonald also claimed victory over Via Sistina on 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 ride.

That means McDonald would have raked in 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 a staggering amount of money during the Spring Carnival, racing purists were quick to point out that he could have made even more in the days of the pendulum.

“The old school was the jockey getting another 5% cash as a pendulum,” wrote one racing fan.

“The nooses would have gotten him more,” added another.

A sling was a predetermined percentage of a profit with which owners and connections paid jockeys.

McDonald, pictured in conversation with 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 this practice has become outlawed, with all payments requiring proper documentation for racing authorities and tax authorities.

Jockey Dean Holland is an unhappy hooper who found out the hard way that the hoop is no longer acceptable in Australian racing.

Holland and co-owner Peter Ferne were each fined $200 by Racing Victoria stewards after Ferne paid the jockey a $100 garland for winning the $16,000 Mixx FM Handicap in 2016.

Now McDonald is chasing more glory in Group 1 in Saturday’s Thousand Guineas aboard pre-post favorite Aeliana in the $1.5 million race for three-year-old fillies.

“She’s an improver, a bit of a sleeper, but her performance at the Carbine Club was great,” McDonald said.

“A lot of the fillies come through the 1400 meter race (The Vanity), but she’s had a run against the boys over a mile and demolished them, so she’s looking pretty good.

“Some of the fillies in that 1400m race might be a little suspect on the mile, the way they ran recently and what their breeding suggests, but she’s ticked that box so it’s not a problem.”