The Melbourne Cup

Episode 30: The Melbourne Cup - The Race That Stops the Nation

"The Melbourne Cup is the Australasian National Day. It would be difficult to overstate its importance. It overshadows all other holidays and specialized days of whatever sort in that congeries of colonies. Overshadows them? I might almost say it blots them out." - Mark Twain, from his travelogue Following the Equator.

The sport of Horse Racing is built into the very fabric of Australia. When brave pioneers in the new colonies set out to build towns it is said they would first build a church, then they would build a pub, and finally they would build a racecourse. It is no surprise as a result that today Australia boasts a racing industry that matches or exceeds far more populated countries for scale, and a love for the sport that is arguably unrivalled.

The pinnacle of this passion is, of course, the Melbourne Cup. Held every year since 1861, through floods, war and depressions, on the first Tuesday in November the city of Melbourne and Victoria as a whole shuts down, workplaces and schools close up, and everyone gathers around a television, radio, or for the lucky few at Flemington Racecourse itself for the world's richest handicap race, and truly the race that stops the nation.

Ben and Jack talk the history of the event and thoroughbred racing, of the great horses, jockeys, trainers and strappers through over a century and a half of the Cup, and of the stories and tall tales that make the event what it is today - Archer being denied a shot at three in a row, the tale of young Peter St Albans and Briseis, Makybe Diva completing the impossible, and of course, the legend of Phar Lap and the mystery of his untimely demise.

Events like this are why we love sport: it is history, it is legend, it is sometimes barely believable, but above all, it is Australia.