Masters rode the first three winners at Albury’s Melbourne Cup meet.

“I rode a lot of doubles when I was beating around the bush when I had a claim (as an apprentice) when I moved up here (from Benalla) in the early days,” she said.

The 27-year-old guided the Ledger stable’s Mankell and Electric Charlie and followed that with Denise Wise’s Master Moving.

Wise said Masters was riding superbly and with confidence.

“It’s just hard, you work hard to get the race rides and a lot of people want to go with the other jockeys, you put in the hard yards and you don’t always get what you deserve,” Masters said.

“It’s a little bit bruising but you get used to it, you just take what you can get.”

Trainers have told her they prefer a stronger jockey or the owners wanted a certain rider.

Masters was then asked if her confidence had been rocked as a result.

“Yeah it does, (but) in the game everyone gets their turn,” she said.

“I’m not going to sook that I’m a female.

“There are a lot of people who do pick up for you and there are a lot of loyal people but, in the same breath, there are a lot of people that just use you and are quite happy to use you for trackwork and not put you up on race day.”

And Masters says some horses prefer female riders.

“Probably just a different attitude, girls are a lot kinder, not so aggressive with their nature, some of them just go for you,” she said.

Masters now boasts 156 winners and, like any jockey who can last a decade in the sport, is resilient, as evidenced by her comeback from a horror fall at Corowa in 2010.

“I was airlifted to Melbourne because I had a punctured lung,” she said.

“I had a broken scapula in three places, about seven broken ribs, a bleed (of the spleen) and three fractures of my spine.

”I was in ICU (intensive care unit) for three-four days.”

Masters missed around six months, but it didn’t take her long to hit career-best form.

“When I first moved up to Albury, that was probably my best time,” she said of the period around seven years ago.