Moonee Valley Gold Cup Moonee Valley Gold Cup The Moonee Valley Gold Cup is a registered Moonee Valley Racing Club Group 2 Thoroughbred horse race for horses aged four-years-old and upwards under Set Weights with penalties conditions, over a distance of 2,500 metres, held annually at Moonee Valley Racecourse, Melbourne, Australia in late October on WS Cox Plate Day. Prize money is A$500,000. The event is the last major long distance event to be run before the Melbourne Cup. Kingston Rule was the only horse to win the Melbourne Cup after winning the Moonee Valley Cup in 1990. The Moonee Valley Cup has seen
Horse racing in Ireland a tradition of racing on the beach in Kerry, a tradition which continues today. There are later mentions of "horse matches" in Galway in the 13th century under the "Kings Plate Articles". The earliest datable evidence, however, is a 1603 royal warrant entitling the governor of Derry to hold fairs and markets at which horse races could be staged. Horse racing was evidently popular in the 17th century: a 1622 poem tells of a jockey killed participating in a horse race in Carrickfergus, while other accounts mention a 1634 race between Lord Digby and the Earl of Ormond, and the