The Melbourne Cup

Sunny and beautiful were the conditions for this Melbourne Cup day (the biggest horse race in Victoria—and I think Australia too) it really couldn’t have gotten any better. I went with Barry, some friends from AustraLearn and RMIT village for the 148th Melbourne Cup. The Melbourne Cup race is actually the 7th race of the day (out of 10) which is again part of a bigger festival at Flemington Racecourse the Melbourne cup festival (including Derby Cup day this past Saturday). It was my first time to a horse race so I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect but had been watching the other major races (Caulfield Cup and Derby Day Cup) in the previous weeks of the spring racing season. Melbourne cup isn’t just about the races, it’s about the fashion and flowers and there were many absurdly large hats and hairpins in the crowd. It was fairly packed at the racecourse, the general admission area being the grass zone between and in front of the two stands (grand stand and hill stand). The racecourse did look good and all the flowers were in bloom (mysteriously, they must train them or something as blooming was definitively 2,3 or even 4 weeks ago). The other part of the cup, of course, is the betting. The Melbourne cup is the most betted upon race in Australia (‘the celebration that stops a nation’) so I’d been trying to figure it out in the run up. I’d set a limit of $25 for betting that day with a good portion going to the actual Melbourne cup race(as most people do, the Melbourne cup is one that all join in on regardless of their experience). We arrived for race 4, but I didn’t bet till race 5. Reservedly I put $5 on Hips Don’t Lie to place (3.6 to 1 odds)…he would win, making that my first win in horse racing ever. The next race I bet on was the Melbourne cup, picking 3 horses to place and Nom De Jeu to win…none of those happened. In race 9 I picked Tour Guide to place (3.3 to 1 odds)…and he came in third. Finally race 10 picked Secret Flyer to place…as he passed us he was in third but fell half a length behind crossing in 4th. All in all, I ended up winning $1, that is I departed with one dollar more betting money than I arrived with (take that punters). Of course my strategies were based on punters odds and by how much I liked the horses’ name.
The Melbourne cup race itself was incredibly tight for first and second with about a half a nose between them (Viewed edging out Bauer) as they crossed the finish line.

Oh and Barry did fairly well too, ridiculously, getting some $40 and $60 winning tickets (he even had Bauer to win the Cup with 40 to 1 odds—missed that by half a nose) . Other people didn’t do so well. It’s all luck really and it’s all part of the sport. And overall it was a great day.