Melbourne Cup history - in pictures

Melbourne Cup winner Green Moon with owner Lloyd Williams. No one person has invested more in their Melbourne Cup dream than retired the businessman who was vindicated in 2012 when Green Moon gave him his fourth win - making him the most successful owner in the history of the race. Green Moon sustained a long run from the 300m, holding off Fiorente and Jakkalberry to give Williams a fourth Cup to go with the trophies won by Just A Dash in 1981, What A Nuisance in 1985 and Efficient in 2007. Photograph: Hamish Blair/AAP

Winning Melbourne Cup jockey Gerald Mosse celebrates after riding Amercain to victory. The American-bred, Australian-owned horse trained by a Frenchman and ridden by a Hong Kong-based jockey in 2010 cemented the Melbourne Cup as a truly international event. Americain reigned supreme over one of the best Melbourne Cup fields ever assembled, with emerging star Maluckyday chasing him home for second, relegating race and crowd favourite So You Think to third and denying trainer Bart Cummings a 13th trophy. Photograph: AAP

Jockey Gerald Mosse celebrates after riding horse Americain past the finish line to win the Melbourne Cup with Luke Nolen on Maluckyday, at Flemington race track, Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2010. (AAP Image/Mal Fairclough) Photograph: Mal Fairclough/AAP

Prior to the dramatic 2011 Melbourne Cup, French jockey Christophe Lemaire was given the nod to ride Dunaden after jockey Craig Williams failed to overturn a suspension for careless riding. In the race, Dunaden held off the challenge from English horse Red Cadeaux by the barest of margins - officially a nose but acknowledged as a pixel. It was an historic second successive victory to France. Dunaden's trainer had been a pupil of Alain de Royer Dupre who claimed the 2010 Cup with Americain. Photograph: Mal Fairclough/AAP

Winning horse trainer Bart Cummings holds up the Melbourne Cup in1996. Bart Cummings first experienced the thrill of a Melbourne Cup win at 23 years of age when he strapped Comic Court for his father Jim in 1950. He has now trained 12 Cup winners and snagged the quinella five times. Photograph: JOE MANN/AAP-CTS

Trainer Bart Cummings raises the Melbourne Cup in triumph after winning it a record eleventh time with Rogan Josh. After a hat-trick of wins ending in 1967, Cummings had to wait seven years for his next spate of victories. After a win with Hyperno in 1979, he then endured his longest "drought" in the Cup, having to wait 11 years until Kingston Rule brought up win number eight. This was quickly followed by the Let's Elope in 1991, Saintly scored in 1996 and Rogan Josh in 1999, before Viewed brought up his dozen in 2008. Photograph: Joe Mann

Jockey Kieren Fallon riding New Zealand horse Brew celebrates after winning the Melbourne Cup in 2000. The horse, considered a bolter, had only narrowly made the field that year. Photograph: Steve Holland/AP

New Zealander Sheila Laxon burst into prominence in Australia on the strength of the performances of her outstanding three-year-old filly Ethereal during the Brisbane winter carnival in 2001. Laxon achieved her crowning glory when the mare by Rhythm stormed home to beat the international raiders Give the Slip and Persian Punch in the Melbourne Cup, making her the first woman to train the Melbourne Cup winner Photograph: JULIAN SMITH/DIG

Jockey Jim Cassidy looks to the sky an appears to be praying after winning the Melbourne Cup on the favorite Might And Power, the favorite winning in a photo finish from the fast finishing Doriemus. Before the big European stables turned their attention to the Melbourne Cup 20 years ago, it was the New Zealanders who were the bane of the local trainers. Blarney Kiss gelding Kiwi stole the show in 1983 with his unbelievable finishing burst from last of 24 runners to claim the Cup with a youthful Jim Cassidy in the saddle. Photograph: AP

Australian race horse Phar Lap, regarded by many as the greatest race horse ever, ridden by jockey Jim Pike at the AJC Derby in Randwick, 5th October 1929. Phar Lap's never-to-be-repeated spring of 1930 inspired an Australia in desperate need of heroes at the height of the Great Depression. The horse famously survived a shooting attempt on his life on Derby Day just hours before he easily won the Melbourne Stakes. Three days later the nation was on tenterhooks as the "Red Terror", burdened with a record weight for a four-year-old of 9st 12lb (62.5kg), became the first and still the only odds-on favourite to triumph in the Melbourne Cup. Photograph: Hulton Archive

Australian jockey Damien Oliver raises his clinched fist after winning the Melbourne Cup on Irish horse Media Puzzle in 2002. The week before, Oliver's jockey brother Jason died after a fall in Western Australia, Oliver later saying: "I'd give it all back right now to have my brother back." Media Puzzle's victory also confirmed the legendary status of Irish training wizard Dermot Weld who was the first European conditioner to claim the Cup. Photograph: Tony Feder/AP

Vintage Crop at Newmarket in 1992. The breakthrough victory for the Dermot Weld-trained Vintage Crop in the 1993 Melbourne Cupe was the first time it had not been won by Bart Cummings, or any other Australian or New Zealand trainer, and changed the shape of Australia's most famous race for ever. His win opened the floodgates for the overseas raiders. Weld would come back in 2002 and do the deed again with Media Puzzle, which has led to international numbers in the race almost matching the Australasian representation. Photograph: Library

Makybe Diva ridden by Glenn Boss comes across the line to win the cup in 2003. She became only the 14th mare to win the Melbourne Cup. The five-year-old sprinted clear of the field in the final 200 metres to beat She's Archie by a length, with English raider Jardines Lookout grabbing third in a photo finish with two other horses. Conceived in Ireland and born in England, Makybe Diva was brought to Australia by her tuna fisherman owner Tony Santic when she was unwanted at auction overseas. In 2005, lumbered with topweight of 58kg and then a seven-year-old mare, Makybe Diva did the virtually impossible and won an unprecedented third successive Cup. Photograph: Reuters

Jockey Yasunari Iwata, riding away from Japan for the first time on Delta Blues (right) in 2006, turned in an inspired performance to just pip his stablemate and equal favourite Pop Rock in a photo-finish, with Maybe Better the best of the Aussies a distant 4-1/2 lengths away third.
Photograph: Hamish Blair/AAP

The photo finish pronounced Delta Blue (far side) as victorious, ahead of Pop Rock in 2006. Photograph: Joe Castro/EPA

Japanese jockey Yasunari Iwata (right) and trainer Katsuhiko Sumi celebrate after Japanese horse Delta Blues wins the Melbourne Cup. In previous years, the magnificent Makybe Diva won the hearts of Australia with her unprecedented "three-peat" in the Cup in 2003-04-05. With no Diva in 2006, it was left to the Japanese to shake Australian racing when his pair of Delta Blues and Pop Rock claimed an historic quinella. Photograph: JULIAN SMITH/AAP

Might and Power owner Rick Moraitis holds up the Melbourne Cup after his horse won by a short head at the 1997 Melbourne Cup. The horse which was bred in New Zealand was only the second horse in history to win both Caulfield and Melbourne Cups and the Cox plate. The rider was New Zealand jockey Jim Cassidy. Photograph: Australian picture library

Winner of the 1998 Melbourne Cup Chris Munce waves to fans as he is escorted back to the mounting yard aboard New Zealand champion Jezabeel. The win followed an epic race in which they battled with another New Zealand mare, Champagne, who after reaching a neck advantage over Jezabeel was finally overtaken in the final 100m straight. Photograph: Will Burgess/Reuters