I HAVE been fascinated with this major horseracing event—the Melbourne Cup—which runs every first Tuesday of November.

This year’s staging is its 149th. It has been running on a yearly basis since its inception in 1861.

Yes, that is only six years earlier of the opening of the Manila Jockey Club in Santa Mesa, Manila, which was started by the so-called socio-fundadores—a mixture of Filipino, Spanish and American horse lovers.

This afternoon, at around 3 (it would be 5 here in Manila because they are enforcing daylight saving time in Melbourne), a total of 24 tough-and-tested runners will be answering the bell for the 3,200-meter, Group-1 race that has a whopping total prize money of A$55.6 million (that’s around P240 million when converted based on an exchange rate of P43 to A$1).

Last year’s champion Viewed is back to defend his crown and come within a win of duplicating super mare Makybe Diva’s great feat several years back in the Melbourne Cup. The seven-year-old horse is trained by the popular Bart Cummings, who boasts a total of 12 Melbourne Cup winners.

Cummings has another favorite, named Roman Emperor, which ran second to Viewed in the Caulfield Cup and was a winner of the Australian Derby earlier this year at Sydney’s Randwick Racecourse. He also picked another entry named Allez Wonder as a title contender.

Alcopop, an undefeated colt trained by South Australian Jake Stephens, is expected to give a lot of headaches to Cummings and is expected to be one of the favorites here.

The other runners this year with their jockeys and handicap weights are C’est La Guerre, N. Hall, 55.5 kg; Fiumicino, S. King, 55.5; Master O’Reill,  V. Duric, 55; Mourilyan, G. Schofield, 54.5; Ista Kareem, C. Alderson, 53.5; Crime Scene, K. McEvoy, 53; Munsef, Z. Purton, 53; Zavite, M. Zahra, 53; Harris Tweed, C. Newit  52.5; Kibbutz, C. Symons, 52.5; Newport, P. Wells, 52.5; Warringah, D. Oliver, 52.5; Gallions Reach, D. Dunn, 52; Spin Around, M. du Plessis, 52; Basaltico, Nikolic, 51.5; Capecover, N. Harris, 51.5; Daffodil, C. Munce, 51.5; Shocking, C. Brown, 51; Changingoftheguard, G. Boss, 50.5; and Leica Ding, C. Williams, 50.5.

The list of runners were announced after the last race on Victoria Derby Day on October 31, the featured event in the last major Melbourne race meeting before the Melbourne Cup.      

Lead-up races to the Melbourne Cup during this year’s spring racing carnival included the Caulfield Cup at Caulfield Racecourse on October 17 and the Cox Plate at Moonee Valley Racecourse on October 24.

THE Melbourne Cup is a handicap race with weights set according to an individual horse’s record. There are strict requirements for getting into the race to ensure that only the best stayers with proven records get into the Melbourne Cup.

While Melbourne Cup Day is a public holiday in the Victorian capital, it is pretty much a day of festivity and a day of betting everywhere in the country. Throughout Australia, offices, clubs and other organizations hold sweeps (where ticket holders are allocated Cup horses at random for the chance of winning the sweeps prize for each of the first three placers) and so almost everyone has a stake in the race.

Fleminton Racecourse, which is 6 km northwest of Melbourne, is the home track of the Melbourne Cup and is also home to a number of major Australian horseraces throughout the year. The racecourse is 130 hectares in size. The main racetrack itself is 2,312 meters in circumference with a straight of 450 meters.

The start of the 3,200-meter Melbourne Cup is on the other side of the finish line with horses thus passing the finish line once before completing a full circuit of the track.

A true-to-life bronze statue of legendary Australian racehorse Phar Lap and Makybe Diva (winner of the three consecutive Melbourne Cup from 2003-2005) stand on the racecourse grounds.

Conceived in Ireland and born in Europe, Makybe Diva is the seven-year-old mare (at the time of the 2005 Melbourne Cup) which entered the Australian horseracing record books for being the first to win three consecutive Melbourne Cup races (2003 to 2005).

She won the Melbourne Cup in 2003 by beating She’s Archie and Jardines Lookout and repeated her winning performance in the 2004 Melbourne Cup by beating Irish horse Vinnie Roe into second place and long-priced Zazzman third. In the 2005 Melbourne Cup, she flashed home to beat On a Jeune and Xcellent.

In between her first two Melbourne Cup wins, she squeezed in a Sydney Cup victory and is the first horse since Carbine in 1890 to win the Sydney Cup and Melbourne Cup in the same year. She was ridden in all her victories by regular rider Glen Boss.

How she got her name is an interesting story. Stuck for a name, owner Santic passed on the problem to five of his women employees in his fishing business. Not finding inspiration from the bloodlines, the women settled on using the first two letters of their given names in naming the filly. The five women were Maureen Dellar, Kylie Bascomb, Belinda Grocke, Dianne Tonkin and Vanessa Parthenis whose names are now part of Australian racing history.