21 Facts About Melbourne Cup

Melbourne Cup is Australia's most famous annual Thoroughbred horse race.

Melbourne Cup has a long tradition, with the first race held in 1861.

Melbourne Cup race is a handicap contest in which the weight of the jockey and riding gear is adjusted with ballast to a nominated figure.

The first Melbourne Cup trophy was awarded in 1865 and was an elaborate silver bowl on a stand that had been manufactured in England.

The first existing and un-altered Melbourne Cup is from 1866, presented to the owners of The Barb; as of 2013, it is in the National Museum of Australia.

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In 2003 an annual tour of the Melbourne Cup trophy was initiated to provide communities across Australia and New Zealand with an opportunity to view the Cup trophy and highlight the contribution the Melbourne Cup has made to Australia's social, sporting and racing culture.

Melbourne Cup's owners were Thomas John "Tom" Roberts, Rowland H Hassall, and Edmund Molyneux Royds and William Edward Royds .

Inaugural Melbourne Cup of 1861 was an eventful affair when one horse bolted before the start, and three of the seventeen starters fell during the race, two of which died.

Melbourne Cup defeated a field of twenty starters by eight lengths, a record that has never been beaten, and that was not matched for over 100 years.

Melbourne Cup was trained by Etienne de Mestre, and like Archer before him raced in de Mestre's name but was leased from the "Exeter Farm".

Melbourne Cup was first run on a Tuesday in 1875, the first Tuesday in that month.

Melbourne Cup's was ridden in the Melbourne Cup by the tiny featherweight figure of jockey Peter St Albans.

Melbourne Cup had to be hidden away at Geelong before the race after an attempt was made to shoot him and only emerged an hour before the race time of the Cup.

Melbourne Cup was reputedly an Aboriginal stockman born in the area where Archer was trained but was actually John 'Cutts' Dillon, the son of a Sydney clerk, a jockey who rode for many trainers in his long career, and who was one of the best known, best-liked and most respected jockeys in New South Wales.

The first jockey of Indigenous heritage to ride a Melbourne Cup winner was Frank Reys in 1973 on Gala Supreme, who had a Filipino father and a half-Aboriginal mother.

The 1910 Melbourne Cup was won by Comedy King, the first foreign bred horse to do so.

Melbourne Cup day is a public holiday for all working within metropolitan Melbourne and some parts of regional Victoria, but not for some country Victorian cities and towns which hold their own spring carnivals.

The Melbourne cup captures the public's imagination to the extent that people, whether at work, home, school, or out and about, usually stop to watch or listen to the race.

Many people from outside of Melbourne Cup take a half or full day off work to celebrate the occasion.

Victoria Derby Day has the Corn Flower, Melbourne Cup Day is for the Yellow Rose, Oaks Day highlights the Pink Rose and Stakes Day goes to the Red Rose.

In New Zealand, the Melbourne Cup is the country's single biggest betting event, with carnival race-days held at several of the country's top tracks showing the cup live on big screens.