Geelong Cup Geelong Cup The Geelong Cup is a Geelong Racing Club Group 3 Thoroughbred horse race, held under handicap conditions for over a distance of 2400 metres at the Geelong Racecourse, Geelong, Victoria, Australia on a Wednesday in late October The prize money for the race is A$300,000, and the race is considered one of the most reliable guides to the result of the Melbourne Cup. The race is run thirteen days before the Melbourne Cup (which is always on the first Tuesday in November). The race has been run on this day since 1947. The day of the race is
Melbourne Racing Club the Caulfield Cup meeting in 1953. In 1963 the Melbourne Racing Club, which had been created from an amalgamation of the Williamstown Racing Club and the Victorian Racing and Trotting Association, was incorporated into the VATC. Following the merger, the newest of Melbourne's race tracks, Sandown Racecourse, was opened on 19 June 1965 in front of a crowd of over 52,000. The first Blue Diamond Stakes, a race for 2 year olds, was run at Caulfield in 1971 and won by Tolerance. The glass-fronted Rupert Clarke Grandstand, which replaced the main Caulfield grandstand of the 1920s, was opened in 1992.