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
Melbourne Cup in their lifetime." Due to the 2007 Australian equine influenza outbreak, believed to have been started by a horse brought into Australia from Japan, neither Delta Blues nor Pop Rock participated in the 2007 Melbourne Cup. Both horses had been stabled in Japan. Corowa, NSW trained "Leica Falcon" also was not be permitted to race in Victoria, despite Corowa being close to the Victorian border. Leica Falcon was ordained as the new staying star of Australian racing in 2005 when he ran fourth in both the Caulfield Cup and in Makybe Diva's famous third Melbourne Cup victory. But serious leg