MELBOURNE, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Local runner Half Yours overcame wet conditions to win Australia's most prestigious horse race, the Melbourne Cup, on Tuesday.

Half Yours took the lead in the final 200 meters of the 3,200-meter race to win the 165th running of the Melbourne Cup at Flemington Racecourse in the city's northwest suburbs.

The victory made Jamie Melham the second female jockey in history to win the Melbourne Cup, and the first to do so since 2015.

"Nothing ever compares to this feeling right now," Melham said immediately after the race.

With a record total prize pool of 10 million Australian dollars (6.5 million U.S. dollars) for Tuesday's running, the Melbourne Cup is one of the richest horse races globally and attracts a field of stayers from around the world.

Trained at Flemington by father-son combination Tony and Calvin McEvoy, the five-year-old Half Yours on Tuesday became the 13th horse in history to win both the Melbourne Cup and the Caulfield Cup, a five million AUD (3.2 million USD) 2,400-meter race run in Melbourne's southeast every October, in the same year.

Known locally as 'the race that stops a nation' and run annually on the first Tuesday in November, the Melbourne Cup is one of Australia's largest sporting events and is marked with a public holiday in the state of Victoria.

Despite wet weather conditions in Melbourne, a crowd of more than 90,000 people were expected to attend Flemington Racecourse on Tuesday.

Ireland's Goodie Two Shoes ran second, with the United Kingdom's Middle Earth finishing third of the 24 runners. ■