10-year-old Nicola Donnelly puts her pony Elmo over a hurdle at her home for the Justracing camera. Nicola is the daughter of Andrew Donnelly and former jockey Melanie Price.

It would go without saying that two dates are indelibly imprinted in the mind of Melanie Price forever.

One would be Saturday 18 February 2006, when riding as an apprentice at her first Saturday in the metropolitan area, she steered home four winners in Brisbane – Pure Energy (for trainer Ron Maund), Adavale Hornet (Ivan Duke), Fair Ace (Ken Jones) and Partridge (Allen Gooden). The 28-year-old created Australian racing history that day at Eagle Farm. It isn’t rocket science to work out that if Melanie gets the mandatory human lifespan of three score years and ten, plus a couple of extra decades to boot, that her feat will never be bettered.

The other date that would be probably even more indelibly printed in Melanie’s mind would be 23^rd of July 2000. You see that was the date her only child – a daughter, Nicola – entered the world. Nicola was born to Melanie and her then partner and racehorse trainer, Andrew Donnelly who is the subject of the Justracing fundraiser on 4/10/10, as per the banner advertisement above.

These days Nicola is a bubbly 10-year-old and lives with Mel and her new partner Adam Bell – but Melanie and Andrew remain friends and Nicola gets to spend time with her father on weekends.

If you go into young Nicola’s breeding carefully she’s by a racehorse trainer on the male side and she’s out of a jockey on the female side, so you’d reasonably expect her to be able to sit on a horse okay – and to that end she sure can. Just like her mother did that historic day at Eagle Farm, Nicola has been riding up a storm in show and pony club events. She has her own Connemara pony that she calls “Elmo” and he’s been in her life from the age of one. Nicola’s grown up riding Elmo and now she’s just big enough to handle him and he’s competing very successfully all over South East Queensland at Shows and Pony Clubs. “She loves to jump him and do one day events and campdrafting, or any of those allied activities,” Nicola’s proud Mum told me, continuing “and apart from her ability in the saddle, Nicola is also a good athlete. She’s her school age champion and she’s also the district age champion in athletics and swimming. Her favourite events are running, high jump and long jump and she’s just been to the Metwest meeting at QE2 Stadium at Nathan in Brisbane for the 100 and 200 metres. Metwest is the level just below State (championships) level.”

Melanie first met Andrew in 1998 when she was both riding trackwork at Clifford Park racetrack in Toowoomba and working on the Atkinson family owned Furlong Stud at Greenmount. Andrew was also working at Furlong Stud at the time. “After Andrew and I first got together we eventually moved from Toowoomba to Chinchilla in 1999. Whilst we parted, I’m still very supportive of Nicola having Andrew in her life. Basically Andrew’s accident has been a really big blow to his whole family and to Nicola. Andrew was once very active and just loved to ride and loved spending time with his daughter and riding with her and we’d all love to see him to be able to get back to be able to be doing all those things again one day” Melanie said.

Asked if she sees Nicola’s weekend visits to see Andrew as integral to his rehabilitation, Melanie commented “Absolutely. Nicola’s been to visit Andrew consistently ever since his accident. She spent last Christmas by his bedside. Leeanne (McCoy) has brought Andrew down from Chinchilla to visit and he’s been to watch her running and riding.”

Melanie’s advised that her last race ride was “about 18 months” ago. “There was a meeting here at Esk and I had one ride for a win on a mare called Benji’s Babe for a friend of mine Gary Goold.” Mel also straps the occasional horse at a race meeting stating “I’m a good friend of (trainer and farrier) Wayne Nugent who I was apprenticed to in Toowoomba and I strapped a horse called Mona Leah for him at the Gold Coast recently. I’d had a lot to do on the mare as I won on her at her first start.”

Asked her long term aspirations for Nicola, Melanie replied “I’d just like to see her succeed at everything that she does. I think that she’ll excel in her horse riding and go a long way with that. She’d like to go to the Olympics eventually.”

You can take it as read that if a youngster named Nicola Donnelly wins an equestrian event at Esk, or an Olympic gold medal that she will have done her mother proud and done her part to help rehabilitate her father who is lucky to be in our midst following a nasty trackwork fall last December in Chinchilla.

Melanie, Nicola and Andrew will all be in attendance for Andrew Donnelly’s fundraiser at Kedron Wavell Services Club on Monday 4 October. Details of how interested persons can buy tickets for the gala evening can be read by clicking on the banner advertisement at the top of this website. To that end I can advise that tickets sales to date have been good and I expect the night will be a sellout, so anyone wanting tickets should contact me as soon as possible as the Blue Pacific room at Kedron Wavell Services Club only takes 240 people, when set up for tables of 10.