The Melbourne Cup may be held at Flemington but the $7.3 million horse race is celebrated across Australia.
THE RACE THAT STOPS A NATION
* Melbourne Cup day has been a public holiday in Melbourne since 1877
* Lloyd Williams, the owner of six Cup winners, has called for the day to be a national public holiday. Williams is going for seven wins this year with Irish-trained stablemates Yucatan The Cliffsofmoher
WHEN THE WORLD JOINED IN
* This is a milestone anniversary of Vintage Crop’s win, the first international horse to take the Cup when the Irish stayer was successful in 1993
* There are 11 northern hemisphere-trained horses running on Tuesday.
WHY ISN’T WINX IN THE CUP?
*The world’s highest ranked racehorse, Winx has won 29 races in a row including four consecutive Cox Plates but has never contested a Melbourne Cup and has never run beyond 2400 metres.
* Because of her success, Winx would be slugged with a big weight, more than 60kg.
* She doesn’t need to. Having amassed nearly $23 million prize money and earned herself the title of world’s best thoroughbred, Winx hasn’t got anything else to prove
* Her trainer Chris Waller will have three runners – Who Shot Thebarman, Youngstar and Finche
* Winx’s jockey Hugh Bowman will ride English horse Marmelo
ECONOMICS OF THE CUP
* More people take sick leave on the day after the Melbourne Cup than at any other time
* Analysts say it costs Australia more than a billion dollars in lost productivity
* But in 2017 the carnival attracted more than 100,000 interstate visitors and contributed $225 million in new tourist dollars.
* And it poured more than $444 million gross into Victorian state coffers
* Australians are expected to place more than 35 million individual bets over the four-day Melbourne Cup carnival.
HOW AUSTRALIA CELEBRATES
* Forty three race meetings will be held across Australia on Tuesday. Queensland leads the way with 14, followed by NSW with 13.
* The border town of Wentworth in the far south-west of NSW where the Murray and Darling rivers meet holds its own annual Cup meeting to coincide with Australia’s greatest race.
* Wentworth’s population of 1400 people doubles with tourists who come to indulge in the country hospitality
FASHION
* Fashion became a Melbourne Cup staple in 1962 with the debut of Fashions in the Field. It stopped in 1971 during a cash-strapped economy
* For the 2017 Cup carnival more than $32 million was spent on fashion including 49,067 pairs of shoes, 46,448 dresses and 59,665 hats and fascinators
ROYALS
* Despite her love of racing, The Queen has never attended the Melbourne Cup, leaving it to other British royals including
* Prince Charles and his then-wife Diana, Princess of Wales (1985)
* Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York (1990)
* Zara Phillips, daughter of Princess Anne and the Queen’s granddaughter (2009)
* Prince Charles and Camilla (2012)
* The Queen has had a Cup runner with Arabian Story sixth in 1997.
FORECAST
* Some rain and thunderstorms are predicted on Monday and Tuesday with Cup day temperatures to be around 20 degrees.
Credit: AAP