History of Melbourne Cup

The Melbourne Cup is a 3200 metre thoroughbred race, conducted by the Victoria Racing Club at the Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne.  The event is conducted on the first Tuesday in November annually.

The Melbourne cup is the pinnacle of the Victorian Spring Racing Carnival, a month long festival of thoroughbred racing that is held at more than 20 tracks across Victoria.  . The Spring Carnival is estimated to bring around $650 Million in gross benefit to the Victorian economy. Around 352000 people attended 2012 Melbourne Cup Carnival. More than $6.2 Million is divided up among the top ten finishers in the Cup.

Horse races begin in Melbourne within five years of settlement on the banks of saltwater River (Maribyrnong River) of what was to become known as Flemington. In 1848, the governor of New South Wales ordered the 140 hectares site to be designated a public race course and appointed a group of trustees to oversee it.

In its first running on7th November 1861, the Melbourne cup was won by a horse from Sydney of the trainer Etienne de Mestre.  The Melbourne Cup which had 17 starters in 1861 has grown to 20 starters in 1862. But a bureaucratic bungle resulted in trainers from NSW withdrawing from 1863 race. With no entries from NSW only 7 runners competed 1863. With this incident Both the Victoria Jockey Club and Victoria Turf Club collapsed. Since 9th March 1964, Victorian Racing Club became the sole entity to administer the race.  The Victorian Racing Club Act of 1871 made this into law.

In 1865 Banks and Public offices made Cup day a half holiday and soon other businesses followed suit. In 1876 it was decided that the cup will run on the first Tuesday of November every year.

Betting

Around $140 Million worth of bets are placed for Melbourne Cup every year. The most popular form of betting for the cup are Win and place. Other popular betting types are Quinellas and Trifectas.

TAB is Victoria Racing Club’s major online betting partner. Do not bet or gamble for Melbourne Cup. Gambling destroys families

Basic information for placing bets

Simple bets

Win : If your horse wins the race, you win!

Place : If your horse comes first, second or third, you win (if there are at least eight starters)!

Each Way : A Win and Place bet in one.

Exotic  Bets

Melbourne Cup Quinella – A punter must pick predict the top two winners of the race in any order for the wager to win. Punters usually take the top two favourites when making these bets, but there are many other combinations that punters can choose from.

Box Quinella – Punters pick more than two horses to win first or second in the race. The more horses the punter selects in his “box”, the higher his chances of winning. In effect, a box quinella is just multiple quinella bets, but is an easier way to cover every combination of your preferred runners. These bets are easiest to make at an online betting sites, where you can quickly get help from support staff if you need it.

Melbourne Cup Exacta – Like the quinella, punters must pick two horses to run first and second, but in exact finishing order. The exacta is harder to pick than a quinella, with the advantage that it pays out significantly better.

Box Exacta – Just as with the box quinella, the box exacta allows punters to choose a field of 2 or more horses, and it covers every exacta combination of those horses.

Melbourne Cup Trifecta – Punters pick the first three finishers in exact order. It is quite an achievement to pick the Melbourne Cup Trifecta outright, so most punters go with a box trifecta instead.

Box Trifecta – Punters pick any number of horses from 3 to the field limit, and then cover every trifecta combination of those runners.

Melbourne Cup First Four – Punters pick the first four finishers in exact order. Again, getting this right is hard, so punters usually take this as a box bet.

 Box First Four – Punters pick a number of horses from 4 to the field limit, and then cover every First Four combination of those horses.  ( Information Courtesy: racenet.com.au)

Multi-race bets

Quaddie : Pick the winners of today’s four Quaddie races, usually the last four races of the day.

BIG6 : Pick the winners of the last six races. Take a $10 ‘Fred’ mystery BIG6 bet to get two random selections in each race.

Carnival combo

Carnival Combo : $20 gets you four horses in a Box Trifecta in the main race of the day, plus $1 each way on those horses.

Do not bet or gamble . Gambling destroys families