Melbourne Cup takes in cities around the world as part of the Victoria Racing Club’s strategy to promote the Melbourne Cup and the Melbourne Cup Carnival internationally. The Tour has visited schools and aged-care and hospital facilities, and participated in community events and celebrations including race days across Australia and New Zealand. Frederick Standish, member of the Victorian Turf Club and steward on the day of the first Cup, was credited with forming the idea to hold a horse race and calling it the "Melbourne Cup". Seventeen horses contested the first Melbourne Cup on Thursday 7 November 1861, racing for the modest
Steeplechase (horse racing) (mainly off) in the track's limited live race meets. The Stoneybrook Steeplechase was initiated in Southern Pines, North Carolina on a private farm owned by Michael G. Walsh in 1949 and was held annually in the spring until 1996, with attendance near 20,000. It resumed as an annual spring event at the new Carolina Horse Park in 2001, but was discontinued after 2016. The New York Turf Writers Cup is held each year at Saratoga Race Course, attracting the best steeplechasing horses in the U.S. Australia has a long history of jumps racing which was introduced by British settlers. In