Australian culture and way of life has attracted many migrants to travel to Australia. One of the strangest holidays for some of our clients who moved to Melbourne is the “Melbourne Cup” day.
As one of our clients said “I first thought it was a cricket or footy tournament, apparently not. It is a horse race in Melbourne”
The Melbourne Cup is Australia’s most famous annual Thoroughbred horse race. It is a 3200-metre race for three-year-olds and over, conducted by the Victoria Racing Club on the Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, Victoria as part of the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival. It is the richest “two-mile” handicap in the world and one of the richest turf races. The event starts at 3:00 pm on the first Tuesday of November and is known locally as “the race that stops the nation”.
Phar Lap, the most famous horse in the world of his day won the 1930 Melbourne Cup at 11/8 odds on, the shortest-priced favourite in the history of the race. He had to be hidden away at Geelong before the race after an attempt was made to shoot him and only emerged an hour before the race time of the Cup. Phar Lap also competed in 1929 and 1931, but came 3rd and 8th respectively, despite heavy favouritism in both years. Melbourne Cup day is a public holiday for all working within metropolitan Melbourne and some parts of regional Victoria, but not for some country Victorian cities and towns which hold their own spring carnivals. For federal public servants, it is also observed as a holiday in the entire state of Victoria.
Photo by Philippe Oursel on Unsplash