Melbourne Cup Day is Australia's most famous Tuesday. It's a day when a nation stops whatever it's doing to listen to the race call, or watch the it on TV. At 3.20pm AEST, on the first Tuesday in November, Australians everywhere come to a standstill. The Melbourne Cup is one of the world's most challenging horse races, and one of the richest, it is run over 3200 metres with the prize money being close to three million dollars.

The first Melbourne Cup was run in 1861 at Flemington race course and was won by Archer. It has run every year since. Through wars and depression, and the good times too, the Melbourne Cup racing carnival has been one of the stayers of Australian cultural experience.

Today is Melbourne Cup day, and this year the Melbourne Cup 2000 was one by a wonderful horse named Brew. Unfortunately I put all my money on Diatribe who didn't even come in a place. Oh well, you can't win them all.



Update November 6, 2001:

The winner this year was Ethereal in a fantastic race.