Melbourne Cup History

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - NOVEMBER 2: Janine Plant strapper of the Lindsay Park Stables with horse Carlton Caper during morning trackwork prior to the The Melbourne Cup at Flemington Racecourse, on November 2, 2004 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images) Horseracing in Melbourne is as old as the city of Melbourne itself. In fact it took only 25 years of permanent settlement for the citizens of Melbourne to organise the race that we know today as the Melbourne Cup.

Interestingly, the prize for the first race in 1861 was not a cup at all, but rather a gold watch that came with a tidy £170 purse. The first running of the event managed to muster a crowd of 4000 spectators, who went on to witness Archer defeating the field of seventeen to claim the first Melbourne Cup title.

Archer was back the following year, and once again took the cup. It might have been three in a row for Archer if bureaucratic nitpicking hadn’t seen him refused entry to the 1863 race.

In 1864 the organisational structure of the Melbourne Cup began to take shape. Melbourne Cup history was made when the Victoria Jockey Club merged with the Victoria Turf Club to form the Victoria Racing Club, which was promptly put in charge of the Melbourne Cup.

By 1871 the future of the race was assured when the Victoria Racing Club was given legal rights over the Flemington Racecourse. Good management and the controversy surrounding Archer’s prospects at the third cup spurred public interest in the event and attracted big crowds. By 1975 the day of the running of the Melbourne Cup had been designated a public holiday in Victoria.

For the next hundred years the Melbourne Cup continued to attract a growing following. From 1926 onwards the crowd for the race began regularly exceeding 100,000 spectators, and at the same time foreign interest in proceedings grew with foreign horses claiming the cup in 1910 and 1924.

The first major change to the established order of he Melbourne Cup took place in 1972 when the race distance was changed to accommodate the Australian conversion to the metric system. This saw the race shortened from 2 miles (or 3218 meters) to the existing distance of 3200 meters.

Apart from the change in distance, the Melbourne Cup history has witness few changes for over a century, and was even run during the war years. Virtually the only aspect of the race subjected to frequent change and tinkering was the trophy, which has taken on several different shapes and designs over the years.

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