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". The Melbourne Cup has a long tradition, with the first race held in 1861.
The Melbourne Cup was introduced by the Turf Club to trump the success of Jockey Club races, such as the Two Thousand Guineas. The Melbourne Cup is one of the world's few major handicap horseraces. A handicap race is one in which each horse is allocated a different weight depending on its age and previous form.
It's a celebration of multicultural Australia
The Melbourne Cup is a time for people from all different cultures to come together and celebrate Australian life. Most people at the Melbourne Cup are from Australia, but there are also people from all across the world.
Melbourne Cup, annual horse race, first held in 1861, that is the most important Australian Thoroughbred race of the year and one of the most prestigious races in the world.
The Melbourne Cup is one of the biggest horse races in the world. Every November, horse racing fans gather at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne to witness "the race that stops a nation". The race is a 3200-metre handicap and it draws some of the most talented horses, jockeys and trainers from around the world.
The most famous and well-known horses that you know are most likely Secretariat, Seabiscuit, and Mon O' War. These racehorses rose to celebrity status due to the huge popularity and cultural impact of the horse racing sport.
The Everest is billed as the “world's richest race on turf” with twelve of the fastest horses competing over a distance of 1200 metres at Randwick Racecourse for prizemoney of $15,000,000. The Everest will be held on Saturday 14th October 2023 and won in 2022 by Giga Kick.
In 2019, the last pre-pandemic year, 81,408 people turned up for the cup and 276,186 to the carnival overall. That's a significant drop from a decade before when it was 102,161 to the cup and 368,929 overall.
Inaugural race: 1861
The most famous Thoroughbred race in Australia, the annual Melbourne Cup, dubbed “the race that stops a nation,” is a 3,200-meter (about 2-mile) turf handicap for three-year-olds and up. It is the second-richest turf race in the world, behind The Everest.
More than half of all Melbourne Cup winners have been either four-year-old or five-year-old horses, with 90 wins combined from 161 runnings to date. At the other end of the spectrum, horses aged seven or older have won the great race only 14 times in total.
Racing.com editor Paul Tatnell confirmed all horses in the race finished the race in good health. “All horses have returned safely post Melbourne Cup, and will undergo customary vet inspections,” he said. “Despite previous reporting, only Interpretation did not finish the race but stable reports to be ok.
The Melbourne Cup is the world's premier handicap distance thoroughbred race. It's called "the race that stops a nation" because most of the country takes a day off for the race. The Melbourne Cup is always on rhe first Tuesday in November at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne's' West..
The trophy is made from 18-carat gold and is awarded to the winning owner first placed horse. The Melbourne Cup Trophy is worth a staggering $250,000 on top of the other $14 million in prize money. The winning trainer and jockey are presented with smaller versions of the Melbourne Cup which are valued at $10,000 each.
Melbourne Cup Trophy
The winning trainer and jockey are each awarded a miniature version of the trophy, and the strapper receives the Tommy Woodcock, which is named on behalf of Phar Lap's attendant. Trophy Values: Melbourne Cup owners trophy = $250,000 dollars. Trainer & Jockey miniatures = $10,000 trophy.
In 2021, 1.213 million watched the race, while this year 1.024 million tuned in. The only capital city to come out on top was Melbourne, where 8000 more people viewed the Cup this year than last year.
The Mongol Derby is the longest and toughest horse race in the world. We don't say that lightly. A decade after launching the race that title is still being backed up by riders year after year. In 1224 man of the millennium Chinggis Khaan set up the world's first long-distance postal transmission system.
Lower literacy rates are found mostly in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The world's largest ethnic group is Han Chinese, constituting over 19% of the global population in 2011. In terms of the largest number of native speakers, Mandarin is the world's most spoken language.
The race wasn't run on a Tuesday until 1875. It has remained on a Tuesday since, apart from isolated incidents. For example, in 1916 the Cup was washed out and run on the following Saturday. That first win was worth just 710 pounds.
The Melbourne Cup is the biggest prize in Australian thoroughbred horse racing, always run on the first Tuesday in November at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne. It is the biggest betting event of the year in Australia, attracting millions of bets from around the globe across all of the top horse racing betting sites.
The 1874 Cup meeting was the last one to be run on a Thursday. In 1875 it was moved to the second Tuesday of the month. This meant the Cup was to be run on 9 November, the Prince of Wales birthday. As a result civil service and bank holidays were gazetted.
Secretariat (March 30, 1970 – October 4, 1989), also known as Big Red, was a champion American thoroughbred racehorse who is the ninth winner of the American Triple Crown, setting and still holding the fastest time record in all three races.
Phar Lap was called "The Wonder Horse," "The Red Terror," and "Big Red" (the latter nickname was also given to two of the greatest United States racehorses, Man o' War and Secretariat). He was affectionately known as "Bobby" to his strapper Tommy Woodcock He was also sometimes referred to as "Australia's Wonder Horse."