Melbourne Cup, 2008

Today is Melbourne Cup Day. A public holiday in Victoria and since 2007 also in the Australian Capital Territory. For a horse race. :)

For the Cup, fixed for the first Tuesday in November. nearly every person in Australia stops to watch or listen.

Todays Results: 1st - Viewed
                              2nd - Bauer (IRE)
                              3rd - C'est La Guerre (NZ)

I bet on Master O'Reilly and Mad Rush - So I got 4th and 7th out of 22 horses. :( Bart Cummings won his 12th Melbourne Cup today, 50 years to the day that he won his first.

So I hope you enjoyed the 147th Melbourne Cup today.

( Trivia )

Melbourne Cup

( Cup Day is supreme - it has no rival. I can call to mind no specialised annual day, in any country, which can be named by that large name Supreme. I can call to mind no specialised annual day, in any country, whose approach fires the whole land with a conflagration of conversation and preparation and anticipation and jubilation. No day save this one; but this one does it )

extract from The Wayward Tourist by Mark Twain
who visited Melbourne on Cup Day 1895 (winner: Auraria), when the event, already 34 years old