Australia’s Melbourne Cup is considered to be the most prestigious two-mile handicap race in the world and the second-richest turf race. It’s also “the race that stops a nation,” making Melbourne the only city that has a public holiday for a horse race.
History: In the 1861 inaugural race, 17 horses competed for approximately £170 ($325) cash . . . and a gold watch.
Racetrack: Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne, Australia
Date: First Tuesday in November. It was officially made a public holiday in 1877.
Course: 3,200 meters (1.988 miles) as of 1972. Originally the track was more than two miles long, but that changed when Australia adopted the metric system.
Field: Three-year-olds and up; as many as 24 horses
Purse: Approximately $4.87 million (U.S.), sponsored through 2010 by Emirates Airlines (with a bonus of $467,000 if the winner can also win Ireland’s St. Leger race in same year). The trophy awarded since 1919 is a three-handled gold cup worth about $80,000. Made of 34 pieces of metal, it contains 3.6 pounds of 18-carat gold hand-beaten for more than 200 hours.
•The first Aboriginal jockey to win the race was J. Cutts, who took the title at the first and second Melbourne Cups riding Archer in 1861 and 1862.
•The second Aboriginal jockey to win was 13-year-old Peter St. Albans, riding Briseis in 1876.
•Most wins by a jockey: Bobby Lewis and Harry White are tied with four each.
•About 80 percent of Australia’s population wagers on the race. Sweepstakes are held throughout the country, with ticketholders randomly matched with horses for a chance to win a prize. Thus, almost everyone has a stake in the race.
•“Fashions on the Field” is a major focus of racing day, with prizes awarded for the best-dressed male and female racegoers. In 1965, the miniskirt received worldwide publicity when model Jean Shrimpton wore one on Derby Day during Melbourne Cup week.
1876: The three-year-old filly Briseis set a record that still stands: she won three prestigious Australian races—the Victorian Derby, the Melbourne Cup, and the VRC Oaks (now the Crown Oaks) in the span of six days.
1910: Comedy King became the first foreign-bred horse to win the cup.
1990: The present record holder is Kingston Rule, with a time of 3 minutes, 6.3 seconds.
2003: A record attendance of 122,736 racegoers.
2005: Makybe Diva became the only horse to win the race three times—from 2003 to 2005.
•The first cup winner, Archer, was rumored to have walked 500 miles from Nowra, New South Wales, to Melbourne in order to compete. An Australian movie about him called Archer’s Adventure features an 18-year-old Nicole Kidman.
•Phar Lap (beloved in Australia, but actually from New Zealand), the most famous horse in the world of his day, won the 1930 Melbourne Cup. He also competed in 1929 and 1931, when he came in third and eighth, respectively. Phar Lap died in 1932, supposedly poisoned by gangsters.
•A new trophy is created each year and becomes the property of the winning owner. (A second cup is on hand in the event of a tie.)
•Flemington Racecourse grows more than 12,000 rosebushes in 200 varieties within its large expanse. Each major race day at Flemington has an official flower—for the Melbourne Cup, it’s the yellow rose.