The Race That Stops the Nation

The first Tuesday of November is Melbourne Cup Day, also known as "the race that stops the nation". Partly because even though it's only a public holiday in Victoria, other states may also celebrate it. I know in the Sydney office, they usually hold a sweepstake and stop to watch the race. When I was down there in the past, there were a lot of cafes advertising Melbourne Cup events.

I realised that I really don't know much about it except that Phar Lap is a famous horse that won it, and we get a public holiday for it every year (except uni doesn't seem to recognise it as a public holiday T_T). The race itself is 3200 meters (1.99 miles) at the Flemington Racecourse, and only horses that are three years or older can enter. The prize pool for the race this year is $6.2 million AUD, but if the owner of the horse also won the Irish St. Leger in September, they get an additional $500,000 on top of that. Which is probably a bit rough, since Australia has crazy quarantine laws, and horses from overseas (with the exception of NZ) have to go through a strict quarantine process before being able to travel to Australia.

Wow, the first ever Melbourne Cup (1861) has a bit of tragedy behind it. One horse bolted before the start of the race, and three horses fell over during the race, two of which died. The first horse to win the Cup was from Sydney, a horse called Archer, who also went on to win the next year. In 1867, there were two horses in the race called "Tim Whiffler", so they ended up calling them "'Sydney' Tim Whiffler" and "'Melbourne' Tim Whiffler". I can't find out who Tim Whiffler was, but according to this page, Tim Whiffler was a common name for racehorses in the late 1800s. 'Sydney' Tim Whiffler ended up winning. Damn, Sydney.

Another famous horse, Briseis, won the Melbourne Cup in 1876, but she also went on to win The VRC Derby, and the VRC Oaks (all within 6 days of each other). Her jockey was Peter St. Albans, who was 8 days short of being 13-years-old. Pretty crazy.

In the same year, a boat with 13 racehorses sailing for the Melbourne Cup ended up getting caught in a storm, with 11 horses being killed, many of them favourites to win the Cup. I think this is completely disgusting behaviour, but some bookies presented a purse of coins to the captain to thank him for saving them money in potential lost bets.

Oh, there's so much fame around Phar Lap and I never realised he's from New Zealand. I've never seen his heart (which is in the National Museum of Australia in Canberra), but I do remember seeing a display in his honour at the Melbourne Museum.

Other than the public holiday, the Melbourne Cup has also become an excuse to get dressed up and get smashed (drunk). The Cup has become a fashion event, with the main focus being extravagant hats, or fascinators (which are decorative things you wear on your head that aren't hats, though if they resemble hats, they may be called hatinators).

And now I feel better about taking the day off tomorrow!