Early Days Of The Melbourne Cup
The Melbourne Cup is one of the most important events on the Australian calendar and it is affectionately known as the race that stops the nation. From humble beginnings it has risen to become the most watched sporting event in Australia and has garnered international acclaim as the greatest 3200 meter handicap horse race anywhere in the world. Since beginning in 1861 with a small crowd of 4000 it now attracts an international audience as well as global horses coming to try for success and substantial race winnings.
The cup is held each year at the Flemington Racetrack, which is located only 15 minutes out of Melbourne\’s CBD. Over the first couple of years the race was a small affair, but it very quickly grew to be a highlight on the society calendar attracting the society ladies and the upper class to the garden parties and lawn parties at the race track. It has long been equally associated with fashion as it is with horses.
At first the cup was always run on a Thursday, but from 1875 onwards it has always been run on the first Tuesday in November and it is a date that just about every Australian will be able to quote. At about this time the cup was starting to attract huge crowds to the track passing 100,000 attendees, an incredible number of spectators when you realize that Melbourne\’s population at the time was less than 300,000.
At the end of the 19th century Australia had an economic depression that saw up to one third of the workforce unemployed. Due to the economic hardships that the country was going through the trophy was not presented between 1894 and 1898.
As the turn of the 20th century came Melbourne and the rest of Australia was recovering from the economic meltdown and federation would make Australia a nation. The recovery was to be short lived though as the start of World War I in 1914 put the race on the back burner for most Australians. In 1906 a horse called Poseidon became the only horse to have won the Caulfield Cup, Melbourne Cup, AJC and VRC Derby in the one racing season.
By 1930 the Melbourne Cup was cemented in people\’s hearts and minds as a great Australian tradition and it was at this point when Australia\’s most famous horse Phar Lap became the world\’s greatest race horse. When Phar Lap entered the cup in 1930 it had the shortest odds that have ever been placed in the cup\’s history – 11/8. Phar Lap trounced the opposition and won a lot of people badly needed money in the Great Depression. Unfortunately the great horse\’s run came to an end when he died in 1932 in California in suspicious circumstances and it is widely believed that the horse was murdered.
In 1946 the photo finish was added to the race and it was needed in 1948 to determine Ray Neville as the winning jockey. He was a 15 year old that had only had 9 previous rides.
The Melbourne Cup has over its long history become an important element of Australian culture and it is looked forward to by masses of sporting and fashion fans each year.

