Melbourne Cup

Every year on the first tuesday of November at 3pm, Australia, basically comes to a stand still.  All because of a horse race. A race that is over in a mere 3 minutes.  Millions of dollars are bet on it and millions probably lost too.  I know I lost a few bucks on it.  It is billed as 'the race that stops a Nation.' and it really does.  With the race being held in Melbourne it is a national Holiday in Victoria and in NSW most offices shut for the afternoon, and in the rest of the country everyone stops working for the race.

This year there was a film out in the weeks building up to the 1st of November, called The Cup.  It detailed the events up to and including one of the Melbourne Cups most famous races in 2002.

So now that all you brits and non-horse racing fans have an idea what it is about.   Here is the story of the day.

Our office basically shut up shop at 11:45am, all in finest of outfits (I even managed to hire a kilt for the day), we jumped in Taxi's and headed down the Sydney Opera House, our venue for the afternoon.  Canapes and drinks were provided for all, a band was playing and we had 3 hours to kill before the race.  When 3pm eventually came around most people were slightly drunk and everyone had had a bit of a dance too.  Everyone had several bets on by the time the race started, but blink and you would miss it.  It is nothing like the grand national it is over very quickly.  However, this years race was incredibly close with literally just a whisker in it.  I won nothing of course.  But several other people in the office did. 

It led to an amazing evening and night enjoyed by everyone, a few of us even ended up back in the office enjoying a few of the free beers in the fridge.  The next day however, wasn't as much fun.