The Melbourne Cup slogan – “the race that stops a nation” – has seemed faintly ridiculous in the past two years, when the pandemic brought much of Australia to a grinding halt for months – rather than just an afternoon in November.
But even before Covid stopped the crowds turning up to Flemington, attendance numbers were dwindling.
This was taken by some as a sign of a broader loss of affection for the race. Some blame increasing animal welfare concerns after the deaths of horses. Others point to the higher awareness of the ills of gambling. Still others say that the Australian tradition of a punt on the horses has been subsumed by the rise of international, fly-in, fly-out winners and the focus on flash frocks and glamorous celebrities at the track.
Dr Katie Greenaway, a psychology lecturer at the University of Melbourne, says language such as “the race that stops a nation” tries to bake in a sense of unity.
“But maybe that was from a time when there weren’t the more negative associations with this particular event,” she says.
“It’s an event that can be branded as Australian, when people think it says something about who we are as a nation, a nation that has a day off for a horse race. What other country would do that? It implicates a national identity that distinguishes us from other groups.
“In recent years, though, the meaning of the race has changed in people’s minds. It’s become controversial, associated with things people don’t want to be associated with, like animal cruelty, gambling problems and wealth disparity.”
The Melbourne Cup – the Lexus Melbourne Cup – is a world away from most other races in Australia, with its $8m prize pool. And its fatal legacy. In 2020, Derby winner Anthony Van Dyck became the seventh horse to die in recent years. Jockey Kerrin McEvoy was fined $50,000 for excessive use of the whip. Cup-related deaths and injuries have prompted a fierce backlash, along with a review and a promise by Racing Victoria to do better.
The Greens’ animal welfare spokesperson, Mehreen Faruqi, is a vocal supporter of the #nuptothecup campaign, which has been running for a decade but has gained much wider visibility in response to recent deaths.
She says the racing industry’s social licence is “clearly fading”, and describes the cup as “the most lavish symbol of the gambling-fuelled animal cruelty of horse racing”.
New Greens-commissioned polling by Lonergan Research found more than half those surveyed (54%) thought horses should not be raced for gambling and entertainment. Even more (59%) thought it was cruel.
‘It really delineates the haves and the have-nots’
It’s hard to judge the cup’s popularity by attendance numbers at Flemington. Thanks to Covid they were capped last year and no spectators were allowed in 2020.
In 2019, the last pre-pandemic year, 81,408 people turned up for the cup and 276,186 to the carnival overall. That’s a significant drop from a decade before when it was 102,161 to the cup and 368,929 overall.
The number of those watching on television has also been shrinking, but there are so many confounding factors – such as the rise of streaming and of working from home – it’s almost meaningless to compare.
But there’s no doubt in recent years it has become increasingly controversial – and not just because of animal welfare and gambling concerns.
Our Watch has warned about an increase in domestic violence after major sporting events, including the cup.
This year, residents complained that the wall built to save Flemington from flooding had done so at the expense of their homes.
That chimes with the growing sense that, rather than being representative of a “classless” nation, the race is emblematic of wealth disparity.
“It really delineates the haves and the have-nots,” Greenaway says. “It can bring up a lot of political divisiveness, and that can undermine people’s enjoyment of the simple bygone era.”
“The cup really exposes the power and influence of the gambling and racing industries,” Faruqi says. “The industry’s profits are protected and advanced over and above animals and people.
“Those harmed by the gambling, violence and alcoholism associated with the cup are all considered collateral damage.”
While the anti-racing campaign #nuptothecup springs into action again in preparation for Tuesday’s race, it now has a counterpart in #kickupforracing, started by Vicky Leonard, who promotes thoroughbred racing in Australia.
She plans to build up an “army of ambassadors” to counter the anti-cup sentiment and to promote horse racing.
But even she is not an unequivocal supporter of the cup, saying it is in danger of ruining the rest of the industry.
“One of the things that’s devastating for people in the industry is that the one race the public pay attention to has monumentally let us down,” she says.
“[The Melbourne Cup] is not indicative at all of what horse racing in Australia is like. It’s the safest country in the world to race horses.
“It is in danger of ruining our industry. It’s gutting. It’s so offensive that the industry is [receiving] vitriol when it’s completely untrue.”
Leonard says she does not represent Racing NSW or any other racing body. She arrived in Australia from New Zealand a decade ago, and says she was “shocked” by what the people she met believed about racing, so she went on a mission to counter their arguments.
‘The race that segments a nation’
A 2020 Essential poll found about one in three Australians have never been interested in the Melbourne Cup and will not place a bet.
Of the 1,063 people surveyed, 16% said they “regularly bet” on horse races and would place a bet on the Melbourne Cup, while 26% said they “rarely bet” on horse races but would place a bet on the Melbourne Cup. The same proportion would watch but not bet.
Three in four people said the cup was “a unique part of Australia’s national identity” but almost half said they had “become less interested” in it because of concerns about animal cruelty. Another 27% said they were less interested because of concerns about gambling.
Data from an earlier Essential poll (with similar results) was used as the basis for an article in the journal Animals last year, which called the cup “the race that segments a nation”.
The study found people’s attitudes were “much more complex than simple binary views of being for or against thoroughbred horse racing, gambling or animal cruelty”, and that they varied depending on gender, employment status and age.
Men were more likely to be regular gamblers, as were those in full or part-time employment.
Women were more likely to be losing interest in the cup because of animal cruelty concerns, but “intentions to place a bet appeared to be unaffected by gender or income”.
The authors point out that “not all those who are against animal cruelty perceive horse racing as cruel”.
Racing Victoria has tightened up its rules, and says its aim is to “reduce the rate of race-day fatalities in flats [as opposed to steeple-jumping] racing towards 0%”.
The regulator has committed $25m over three years on an equine welfare action plan, and a spokesperson says it is “seeing positive outcomes as a result”.
Each horse in the cup must have passed two veterinary inspections and a CT scan of its limbs, and more research is being done on injury prevention and early detection of problems.
“All within the Victorian thoroughbred racing industry share a common love of the horse and are committed to ensuring the best possible welfare outcomes for the sports’ equine athletes before, during and after racing,” the spokesperson said.
Greenaway says the way people think of big events can change over time.
“It can change and move away from saying something good about who we are, something positive… getting together at the pub, having a day off work, things that make people feel good,” she says.
“It can drive a sense of oneness with the nation… but then it can start being associated with bad things.”
