ORIGIN OF HORSE RACING EVENTS

MELBOURNE CUP

On March 6th and 7th, 1838 the first official race meeting in Victoria was held at Batman Hill, which is now the site of the Spencer Street railway station. In 1840 racing was transferred to Saltwater Flat on the banks of the Maribyrnong River for a three day event. Many people thought that the site was too far away from Melbourne Town for the average punter to attend. The land was owned by farmer / butcher Robert Fleming and his wife, and subsequently became known as Fleming Town. Today the site of Flemington racecourse covers 127 hectares and belongs to Crown land.

In 1848 Port Phillip Turf Club, the first racing club, leased the course to the Victoria Turf Club, which ran the first Melbourne Cup on 7th November 1861 with 17 starters over two miles. The race attracted 4000 people. Archer, winner of the first Melbourne Cup, received £170 prize money and a gold watch. It was the slowest winning time ever recorded for this race, probably because Archer had to walk the 550 miles / 800km from Etienne de Mestre's stables in Nowra, NSW to Melbourne.

In 1865 Melbourne Cup Day was declared a holiday for Victorian public servants and bank employees and in 1866 it became a public holiday for all public and private sector employees.
Since 1875 the Melbourne Cup is always held on the first Tuesday of November. It is the only true cup race although many cups can be won in racing. The first cup was presented to a winner in 1916.

Today the Melbourne Cup is held at Flemington on a spacious pear-shaped course with sweeping turns, long straights and an integrated 1200-metre straight course. It is recognized as one of the world's greatest and most challenging handicap horse races and one of the richest with a total prize money of $AU 4.035 million in 2001. The Melbourne Cup is run over 3200m at 3.10pm and is the centerpiece of the Spring Carnival with the attendance of the Australian Governor-General and the performance of the National Anthem before the big race.

Fastest Winning Time:
1990 Kingston Rule, 3 minutes 16.3 seconds

Slowest Winning Time:
1861 Archer, 3 minutes, 52 seconds

Longest winning distance:
8 lengths
1862 Archer
1968 Rain Lover

Consecutive Cup Winners:
1861, 1862 - Archer
1968, 1969 - Rain Lover
1974, 1975 - Think Big

Largest Weight Carried by a Winner:
1890 - Carbine, 65.6 kilos / 10 st, 5lbs

First New Zealand Winner:
1960 - Hi Jinx

First Northern Hemisphere-trained Winner:
1993 - Irish stayer Vintage Crop

Biggest Attendance:
2000 - more than 120,000 people

Melbourne Cup winners from 1861 to 2002 are listed in our category Racing History - Feature Race Winners - Melbourne Cup.

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