Melbourne Cup Melbourne Cup The Melbourne Cup is Australia's most well known annual Thoroughbred horse race. It is a 3,200 metre race for three-year-olds and over, conducted by the Victoria Racing Club on the Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, Victoria as part of the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival. It is the richest "two-mile" handicap in the world, and one of the richest turf races. The event starts at 3pm on the first Tuesday in November and is known locally as "the race that stops a nation". The Melbourne Cup has a long tradition, with the first race held in 1861. It was originally
Melbourne Cup Bart Cummings won his fifth Melbourne Cup in 1975. Bart Cummings, regarded as the best Australian horse trainer of all time, went on to win 12 Melbourne Cups to 2008. In 1883, the hardy New Zealand bred, Martini-Henry won the VRC Derby, the Melbourne Cup and on the following Monday retained his undefeated record by winning Mares' Produce Stakes. Phar Lap, the most famous horse in the world of his day, won the 1930 Melbourne Cup at 11/8 odds on, the shortest priced favourite in the history of the race. He had to be hidden away at Geelong before the