Melbourne Cup History

This year sees the 150th running of the Melbourne Cup, a horse race that has a stronger foothold in popular Australian culture than any other sporting occasion.


Engraving of the 1881 Melbourne Cup

But the race's place in the fabric of Australia is rapidly changing from a famous sporting contest to a truly international marketing opportunity and entertainment experience.

The Cup started life as a modestly prized handicap in front of a crowd of around 4,000 spectators with Archer the winner. Legend has Archer walking 500 miles from Nowra to Melbourne to contest the first Melbourne Cup, though reports at the time reveal he travelled by steamer from Sydney to Melbourne.

This year, thoroughbred bluebloods from around the world will be flown to Melbourne and housed in virtual luxury in their bid to win the “race that stops a nation”.

The Melbourne Cup is now an international event and in recent years Irish trainer Dermott Weld has won two runnings, while Japanese horses ran first and second in the 2006 Cup.

This year there will be unprecedented interest from foreign stables as they try to win the world's richest handicap race.

The handicap conditions of the Melbourne Cup mean horses are allotted a weight to carry on the basis of their disclosed racetrack form. In theory that means the best horses will always carry the most weight, as opposed to weight-for-age racing where horses are allocated a weight that is based on their sex and age, and not their career history.

Handicap conditions mean astute trainers will try and get their horse into the Melbourne Cup with as little weight as possible. However they often tread a tricky path as a horse placed too low in the ratings may be denied a start if higher weighted horses take all the places in the field.

The history of the Melbourne Cup is littered with tales of astute trainers landing major betting plunges as they sneak their charges into the race with luxurious featherweights.

However the arrival of high quality international horses means that the only way of ensuring a start in the Melbourne Cup these days is to make sure a horse's form is good enough to earn a weight that guarantees a place in the final field.

Though the Melbourne Cup is now a global event with horses, trainers and jockeys from around the world arriving at Flemington to try and win the world famous event an Australian training legend is still the most successful Cup winner of all time.

Bart Cummings has won an amazing 12 Cups since his first win in 1965 with Light Fingers and he'll be back this year having entered 12 stable runners for Flemington's famous race.

For thousands of Australia's once a year punters, the easiest way to sort out the winner of the Melbourne Cup is to simply back a Bart Cummings runner.

This year's Melbourne Cup hopefuls race for a total prize of $6 million, but for many of the 100,000 plus race goers who flock to Flemington Racecourse the race takes second place.

The Melbourne Cup is the social highlight for many in the crowd with fashions and celebrities battling head to head with the equine stars for headlines and prime time television spots.

With the Melbourne Cup attracting the largest viewing audience of any event in the country, the Cup is no longer just a horse race. Corporate advertisers use extravagant hosting marquees and international celebrities to entertain important clients and gain invaluable promotion.

For many of the 100,000 people at Flemington this year for the Melbourne Cup it won't be about who wins the race, but it will be about who you see and who you are seen with.

For the Melbourne Cup has moved on from being a simple horse race. It's now about big business, big brands and big promotional budgets.

But on the first Tuesday in November the safest bet is that the biggest brand in Australia will still be Bart Cummings as he strives to train his 13th Melbourne Cup winner.

And it's a brave person who will bet against brand Bart writing another chapter in his amazing Melbourne Cup chronicle of Flemington success.