A roll call of racing’s global elite and a bevy of exceptional thoroughbred talent will collect on Tuesday to cap a vintage year with the 158th running of the $7.3m Melbourne Cup. After another winter of discontent, spring has sprung in all its glory, supercharged again by wonder mare Winx, and so a skittish nation turns its eyes and smartphones to Flemington. While “community attitudes” to horse racing are polarising in the social media era, Cup Day, a public holiday in Victoria since 1873, still signals party time in Australia, an end of year imperative to down tools, gather in groups, overindulge, and “get on the punt” in the best antipodean tradition.
