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
Horse racing in Japan Japan. Japan's top stakes races are run in the spring, autumn, and winter; the top race is the Japan Cup. The history of equestrian sports and horse racing in Japan goes back many centuries, but it was not until the Spring of 1862 that the first horse race in a recognizably European format was organized by a group of British residents on an area of drained marshland just outside the recently opened treaty port of Yokohama. After a series of informal races were held on the location often referred to as the Swamp Ground, in 1866 the Negishi Racecourse was