Melbourne Cup Trophy

It is a quirk of the Melbourne Cup that this biggest of Australian horseracing prizes was first awarded as gold watch rather than as a cup. For the first four years of Melbourne Cup the winner was awarded with a gold watch and a cash prize.

Then in 1865 the gold watch was replaced for the first time by a trophy. The first Melbourne Cup trophy was a silver bowl, embossed with a representation of a horse and a rider. This trophy stayed in circulation for only one year before being replaced with another silver trophy carrying a depiction of Alexander taming the horse.

History carries no clue of what happened to the third Melbourne Cup trophy. All we know today is that for the next decade no trophy at all was awarded to the Melbourne Cup winner who had to make do with a substantial cash prize.

The Melbourne Cup trophy reappeared in 1976, this time in the form of a traditional cup form, with a horserace at Flemington engraved on the cup’s gold surface. This version of the Melbourne Cup was replaced in short order with another gold cup in 1881, this time engraved with a jockey receiving a laurel wreath.

Seemingly unsatisfied with the fourth Melbourne Cup, the Victoria Racing Club introduced a new trophy in 1899. This trophy came in the form of a silver horse galloping on a wooden plaque. With typical Australian humour, the fourth Melbourne Cup was labelled the ‘Greyhound Cup’ due to the close resemblance of the horse figure to a greyhound.

In took another 20 years for the Victoria Racing Club to settle on a permanent design for the Melbourne Cup. Trophies presented during this period included a silver chalice and a rose bowl manufactured in England. Finally, in 1919 the so called ‘loving cup’, an oversized gold goblet with three handles set on a wooden plinth, was introduced and established as the permanent design for the Melbourne Cup.

The current Melbourne Cup trophy design see a new Melbourne Cup created each year. Several sheets of gold are hand beaten to create the trophy, and there is always a second trophy on hand in the case of a dead heat. Unlike many other competitions the winner of the Melbourne Cup is allowed to retain the A$100,000 trophy.