Today, the Melbourne Cup is the richest handicap race held in Australia, and the prize money and trophies make it among the richest horseraces in the world.
The prize pool for this year's Melbourne Cup is $6.2 million, of which the winner receives $3.6 million, making the race the richest handicap event in the world.
Flemington was fairly basic in the early days with little in the way of running rails or stands. But the Melbourne Cup quickly became popular as a carnival with picnic parties, sideshows, celebrations and people showing off their latest fashions. Socialites, politicians and Australia's rich and famous attended the Cup right from the earliest days, as they still do today.
In 1861, at the first running of the Melbourne Cup, the race club committee could hardly have envisaged the Cup lasting a century and a half and growing to become a significant part of our social and sporting culture.
In front of an estimated crowd of 4000 people, Archer became the first winner of the Melbourne Cup. Victorians, and the wider Australian community, were already displaying their great passion for thoroughbred racing.
At the time of the first Cup, Victoria was experiencing the gold rush and many people had flocked to Melbourne, Bendigo and Ballarat in the hope of finding gold.
By 1880, 100,000 people would make the journey to Flemington to attend the Cup. As Melbourne’s population was only 290,000 at the time, this attendance was quite phenomenal, and many visitors came from the country and other Australian colonies, too. These were flourishing times as Melbourne continued to grow during and after the gold rush period.
While the Cup was first run on a Thursday, in 1875 it changed to a Tuesday and has normally been run on the first Tuesday in November each year. In three of the five years during World War II (1942, 1943 and 1944) it was held on a Saturday.
In 2015, Michelle Payne became the first woman to ride the winner of the Melbourne Cup when she steered the Darren Weir-trained Prince Of Penzance to a famous victory.
Today (31st of October ) the race that stops a nation will bring the city of Melbourne to a standstill with the Emirates Melbourne Cup Parade as it makes its way down Swanston Street to Federation Square between 12pm – 2pm.
Lord Mayor Robert Doyle and VRC Chairman Michael Burn will carry the $175,000 18 carat gold Emirates Melbourne Cup, to be presented to the winning owner on Tuesday.
More than 100,000 racegoers are expected at Flemington on Tuesday for the $6.2 million Emirates Melbourne Cup, the world’s richest handicap race.
2016 Melbourne Cup field
- Big Orange (7)
- Our Ivanhowe (6)
- Curren Mirotic (18)
- Bondi Beach (5)
- Exospheric (13)
- Hartnell (12)
- Who Shot Thebarman (20)
- Wicklow Brave (24)
- Almoonqith (19)
- Gallante (2)
- Grand Marshal (9)
- Jameka (3)
- Heartbreak City (23)
- Sir John Hawkwood (14)
- Excess Knowledge (21)
- Beautiful Romance (1)
- Almandin (17)
- Assign (22)
- Grey Lion (16)
- Oceanographer (11)
- Secret Number (10)
- Pentathlon (4)
- Qewy (15)
- Rose Of Virginia (8)
