I'm Mikey Robins, I'm at the National Museum of Australia to the check out their
project Defining Moments in Australian history, but what we gonna do is we're gonna go behind
the scenes we're gonna check out some objects that tell the stories about
these moments about who we are.
Okay, you punters know what that small gold cup is, for the rest of us, it's
Melbourne Cup and the Melbourne Cup is a defining moment in Australian history.
joined by Martha Sear, good to see you again.
Now, horse racing goes way back to colonial times
It sure does
Back to the very earliest days of the colony, so there were unofficial races in
Sydney from the 1790s, first official race in Sydney in 1810 in Hyde Park
So that's why Hyde Park that's shape. Yes it is!
Lets go back to 1861, the cup says a lot about Melbourne. Absolutely Melbourne had grown so quickly
by 1861 it was only about 25 years old but the boom of the gold rush in there was a
wool boom on at the same time
meant it had grown from a tiny settlement up to a thriving city in less than 25 years
This is the era of marvelous Melbourne, the gold the glittering the streets, people were becoming quite wealthy
and with wealth in Australia came horse racing, horse racing game fashion and glamour
look we are we are a gambling nation let's be honest what is it about the Melbourne cup?
The Melbourne cup stands out because it's a two mile for horses over three years old
it's a handicap so technically all of the horses in the race
are kind of running equally because horses carry weight depending on how successful
they've been in their racing careers and how old they are. It is quite complex, so it's a
fair chance of a mug punter like me could actually pick a winner
technically and any horse in the race could win
tell us the story about the first winner Archer. Well the first Melbourne cup so it's
being proposed as this premier event for Melbourne, one of the key entrants is Archer from that colony up north
New South Wales.There's a lot of legends around Archer
that he actually walked walked from New South Wales that's not really true
I always liked that story! Sorry to break the mystique! But his legend remains regardless
of how he got there, he ran phenomenally in a race that was full of
mayhem and broke through to come first, so to be the first Melbourne cup winner then the next year to
come back and be the second. What is it about these horses that seems to capture
our imagination?
Every generation finds a horse that has some resonance with it the way that people
living, in the thirties you know Phar Lap's story of a kind of gangly
kind of cult who turned into the horse of a lifetime of a generation of a
century really touched people's lives in in that era the depression
where you know a life was tough and the story of a battler who who could win
really lifted people's spirits a difficult time. Could this have been
a race held anywhere else? I think it was the right time for that for that town it was
it was booming it was growing quickly into the city that that many people
believed would be Australia's natural capital city once it became a Commonwealth and people
there felt that I think this race which a hundred fifty years later is now the
race that stops the nation. Well, the race that stops the nation. Everyone in Australia stops
everyone's glued to their radio, watching on their phone, on their TV, might be the only day of the
year that you put your name in the Hat for a sweep, it was a race that developed
alongside new communication technologies, which makes it a really interesting part of
Australia's history. The early results through the Telegraph ultimately then
through radio through through film, you could like and behind me
you can see a record of the call of the race, it was sent out to radio stations to play
it had been running parallel always these new developments in technology connected
more and more people in these days everyone from
Alice Springs, Cooktown everyone's following the race whether they're in Australia or
even or even abroad it's an international event. On a personal level,
what does the cup mean to you? For me its all about the horses.
I love the stories of all the horses, all the personalities of the horses
Peter Pan won after he fell on the track and got bumped up by another horse when he
came into the winner's circle with a big green smudge on his nose from the grass
and everyone looked at Phar Lap, you are a bit ugly you've got warts on your face
I don't think you're gonna be a very good horse and and look what he turned into.
The horses have so much personality and some great stories and we love them and I just
that's where the connection comes from me with cup day was loving the
horses and hearing their tales the horse tales! The beginnings of the Melbourne Cup
is really a defining moment in our history because it's the start of
Australia's most popular horse race, and probably one of the most important
sporting events
thanks for watching but it doesn't end here we want you to join the
conversation. Go to the National Museum of Australia's website that's nma.gov.au
and let us know what you think are the Defining Moments in Australian history
We'd love to hear your opinion, once again thanks for watching
see you soon