Flemington Racecourse The first Melbourne Cup was run in 1861. In 1871 the Victoria Racing Club Act was passed, giving the VRC legal control over Flemington Racecourse. The racecourse is shaped not unlike a pear, and boasts a six-furlong (1,200 m) straight known as 'the Straight Six.' The track has a circumference of and a final straight of for race distances over . Races are run in an anti-clockwise direction. The course has a crowd capacity of over 120,000 and contains three grandstands. The biggest ever attendance was on Victoria Derby Day in 2006 when 129,069 people saw Efficient win the Victoria
Wide Country Stakes Wide Country Stakes The Wide Country Stakes is an American Thoroughbred horse race held annually in March at Laurel Park Racecourse in Laurel, Maryland. The race is open to fillies age three and up over seven furlongs on the dirt. It was run for the 23rd time in 2015. An ungraded stakes race, it currently offers a purse of $100,000. The race was named in honor of the 1991 Maryland-bred "Horse of the Year, Wide Country. Tom Tanner's home bred, Wide Country compiled a nine-race win streak (all stakes races at either Pimlico Race Course or Laurel Park Racecourse. The