I have attended every Melbourne Cup since 1960.
It’s the only horserace in Australia that “Stops the Nation,” with even Parliament stoping for those three and half minutes or so while the race is run and won and another name is etched in the annals of Cup history as the winner of this great race.
Equine legends such as Poseidon, Phar Lap, Peter Pan (twice) and Rising Fast are only a few of the Cup winners immortalised by the mere fact that they have achieved their ultimate aim by winning the greatest staying handicap in the southern hemisphere, arguably the world.
Many thousands of people, especially the Victorian Racing Club members, dress up in their ‘finest’. The men in top hat and tails and the women in their designer gear of all colours, shapes and sizes.
But apart from all those, fancy dress is the order of the day. It’s a day when you could possibly find yourself discussing the form of prospective winning chances with some bloke in a gorilla suit, or Superman, or Nuns with footy shorts or guys dressed up as women, or frogs, or giant beer cans. It’s that sort of day.
The first year I went, it was more or less out of sheer curiosity because I had heard of this champion galloper called Tulloch, who was allegedly an “over-the-line” proposition and over a hundred and ten thousand punters came to Flemington that day to see him perform a feat, which was to many people a foregone conclusion.
The onlly thing that everyone does take very seriously that day is the Melbourne Cup itself. Millions of dollars are wagered on it every year and even the once-a-year punters will have a “flutter” on it or at least have an entry in the sweep at work.
It was not to be Tulloch’s day. Due to an ill judged race by Neville Sellwood and the huge impost of over 10 stone, that gallant little stallion “flew” home, but was beaten into seventh place by the New Zealand mare High Jinx who carried only 7 stone 10.
The huge crowd was stunned. You could have heard a pin drop and the 1960 Melbourne Cup will always be remembered as the cup Tulloch lost, not the one High Jinx won.
Incidentally, the horse who finished 6th, just in front of Tulloch, was a good handicapper called Old Rebel. Five years laters, that same “nag” won the Grand National Hurdle at the prohibitive odds of 200-1. Fancy a horse, who was able to beat the mighty Tulloch home in a high quality flat race like the Melbourne Cup, being able to greet the judge in first in any sort of distance race at such lucrative odds.
Up to the time of writing this, March 1998, I’ve seen Bart Cumming win ten Melbourne Cups in between the years of 1965, when that great mare Light Fingers, with the “Professor” Roy Higgins in the saddle, saluted until 1997, the year of that horse “from heaven”, Saintly, ridden by the future religious minister, Darren Beadman, was successful.
I have experienced the highs of seeing horse like Galiless, Rain Lover (twice), Hyperno and Al Talaq win the famous handicap, to the lows of witnessing crowd favourites like Tulloch, Tobin Bronze, Kingston Town and Super Impose beaten by horses of much lesser ability, either through crushing weights or by sheer bad luck.
One the most memorable cup days was in 1976 when an electrical storm of gigantic proportions hit Flemington Racecourse about 20 minutes before the official starting time. It absolutely “bucketed” down, so much so, that from the leaky Hill Stand cover we could not see the track or even the running rails. The running of the Cup was delayed by over an hour. In fact, at one stage, race officials considered postponing the race to another day.
The Cup that day was run in an abolute quagmire and the eventual winner, Van Der Hum, a noted mudlark, ran a slower time than the Cup Hurdle, the same distance, which was run on a good track earlier in the day.
I’ll alway remember 1979, the year Hyperno won by a short half head (a nose) earning me a cool $12,000, it being the second leg of the Caulfield-Melbourne Cup double that year. Its a tale well documented in one of my earlier stories, The Big Win!
Nor will we ever forget the day the Cup was won by Gala Supreme in 1973. That was the day we had a car accident in the firm’s mini-van on our way home and completely “wrote-it-off”. Luckily nobody was injured in that bingle apart from all of us being badly shaken along with a few cuts and bruises.
Many more great memories spring to mind: from Light Fingers’ win by a short half head over stablemate Ziema in 1965 to that memorable eight lengths win by Rain Lover in 1968, the first of two Melbourne Cup wins, and the disappointment of seeing the favourite Matloch (my selection to win the race as early as September) crash to the turf after travelling like a winner a long way from home. In 1977 Gold and Black defeated Reckless, who had previously that year won the Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane Cups and was trained by old Tommy Woodcock, of Phar Lap fame.
Then there was the year 1983, when that grand old galloper Kiwi (from New Zealand, where else!) came from last on the turn, and in a seemingly hopeless position, to pass the entire field of 23 other horses and “swamp” the leaders close to home to win running away by a length and a half.
In 1984 Black Knight beat Chagemar and Mapperley Heights. The latter I had going for $4,000 after coupling her with Affinity, the winner of the Caulfield Cup that year. It backs up the belief that lightning never strikes twice in the same place.
Then there was Let’s Elope’s emphatic win in 1994, who was part-owned by Kevin White, who we knew quite well.
Over the last four or five years, the boys and myself have booked seats in the Grandstand, thus avoiding the crowd crush down at ground level and the thousands of revellers on the lawn.
Marg and her mother along with other friends and family all watch the races on television that day in the comfort of our livingroom.
I hope to have my “day at the races” on Cup day, health and finance permitting, for many more years to come.
Postscript:
The tradition continued right up to 2019. With Melbourne in lock down for most of 2020 due to COVID-19, no spectators were allowed on course – Tony’s first non-attendance in 61 years (almost appropriately the race was won by an “outsider” at 30-1, Twilight Payment).
Since the original writing by Tony the most memorable of mentions has to go to he mare that created history by winning three consecutive Melbourne Cups from 2003-2005, Makybe Diva. A remarkable achievement and one that may never be matched!! What a privilege to be on course to see all three.