It's our race: The modern Melbourne Cup is experiencing a gentle resurgence despite its complexities

Melbourne Cup Day at Flemington is one of the defining days in the life of our city, the public holiday for the festival of a horse race.

The modern Melbourne Cup is complex as both a sporting event and a cultural celebration.

Where once it was all pervasive, innocent and enticing, it now attracts organised opposition and a more organic hesitancy.

The rituals have diminished, it’s unhelpful pretending otherwise.

But the day and the race still has a vibrancy and I think it is experiencing a gentle resurgence.

Today is a sell-out for the first time since the COVID era. 90,000 people are anticipated here, a major event anywhere in the world.

Some will come for the sport, and some will come for the social scene - and that is as the Cup has always been.

Les Carlyon used to write about men dressed as nuns in a time where dress-ups were a simpler proposition. Now they dress to the nines with the intensity of the red carpet. That’s part of the Cup.

I have seen the race derided as a glorified handicap, well the race is a glorified handicap, that’s what makes it special.

It was conceived as a race anyone in the colony could win.

At the time, the sneering elite thought this ridiculous compared to the classics of Europe and predicted it would never last. But here we are with a race that has long defined the sport in this country. A two-mile handicap.

Where the Melbourne Cup lost its connection was when it tried to become World Series Staying instead of our glorified handicap.

Today is not the strongest Cup, but these things are always judged in hindsight.

In the minutes after 3 o’clock, there will be heroes - horses and humans alike.

They might prove fleeting or enduring. Prince of Penzance won the Cup at 100/1 and nobody backed it, but his jockey changed the country, not just the race.

European blue bloods have flown in, raided the Cup and never been seen again, adding nothing to the history of the race.

We are in a necessary corrective phase since the spate of fatalities that still threatens the long-term place of the Cup.

But the three editions since the veterinary crackdown have restored much of what we once cherished.

Our champion racehorse ridden by the country’s best jockey and prepared by our leading streaked away in a glorious exhibition.

The year after an Arch de Triumph contender edged out the Geelong and Bendigo Cup winners.

And last year the fabled Cups double, almost consigned to another era, was completed.

This afternoon there’s a mix. Last year’s beaten favourite has returned from Europe prompting a wave of loyalty I can’t quite grasp.

You have to go back to 1942 to find a horse that was the beaten favourite one year and returned to win it the next.

The time-honoured runner-up from the Caulfield Cup, the big finisher who dodged the handicap will challenge that mantle, but the master trainer didn’t book the champion jockey.

The Geelong and Bendigo Cup winners are here as are the victors from the Sydney and Moonee Valley Cups.

There are Derby winners from Victoria, Queensland and New Zealand and last year’s Oaks filly.

There are five true internationals and 11 imports. But there are five true locals and three New Zealanders. It’s a much better blend.

There’s an air of Piping Lane about The Map… the true little guy trying to roll the establishment.

There’s a bit of Kensei about Just Fine… a small share to enrol in a big dream.

There’s a bit of Bart about James… the Godolphin trainer has enacted his grandfather’s formula in an era where no one thinks it works.

It’s not a vintage Cup in prospect, but it’s loaded with intrigue and storylines, and there’ll be heroes in the aftermath. 

It might be a glorified handicap but it’s our glorified handicap.

That’s how it was conceived, that’s how it has endured.

If we’re lucky we’ll witness something that lasts well beyond the punt and changing fashions and attitudes of the day.