Early History Of The Melbourne Cup, Australia
The Melbourne Cup is one of the most important days on the Australian social calendar being an opportunity for Australians all around the country to put on their best fashions and check out the race at race tracks all around the country. It is widely known as the race that stops the nation and it is the most watched sporting event in the country. The race was started in 1861 by the Victorian Turf Club and has been going from strength to strength.
Initially it only attracted around 4000 spectators, but now hundreds of thousands come to the Flemington Racetrack, where it is held, to watch the race and millions more view it on their televisions. Flemington is located only 15 minutes from the Melbourne central business district and it is now known as much for the fashions on the field as it is for the horses.
AT first the cup was run on a Thursday, but it was changed to a Tuesday in 1875 and has been run on that day ever since. The race is always held on the first Tuesday in November. By the time that the day of the race was changed the annual crowds turning up to Flemington were exceeding 100,000 an amazing number considering that the population of Melbourne at that time was a mere 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.
When the 20th century arrived Melbourne was recovering from the economic battering along with the rest of Australia. This carefree period was to be brief however, with World War I just over the horizon. In 1906 the horse called Poseidon became a household name as it became the first horse in the history of the race to win the Melbourne Cup, Caulfield Cup, AJC and VRC Derby all in the same 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 grown to become one of the most important social and cultural events on the Australian calendar throughout its history and has become internationally acclaimed and attracts the best race horses from all over the globe who come to try for glory at Flemington.
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