So this is it - the first Tuesday in November. The day that, as we are told relentlessly by media, 'stops the nation'
Well not this little black duck.
Yes I am going to lunch with a few friends - mainly because I like any excuse to have lunch and a champagne or two, but I have zero interest in the actual horserace. I admit that until last night when The Lawyer insisted on a family sweep I did not know the name of a single horse in the race. I haven't written down the names of the horses assigned to my name. I hope none of them die - I witnessed that on the TV one year. While everyone else in the office was cheering and whooping it up on cheap booze and Red Rooster chicken, coleslaw and bread rolls, a screen was put up around a horse that had fallen and it was unceremoniously shot as it had a broken leg.
I bet (see what I did there) the people who had money on that horse were annoyed it didn't finish rather than the fact that it got a bullet in the head.
I didn't always dislike the Melbourne Cup. I have never been into horse racing but went along with the whole place a bet, watch the race, indulge scenario. But I didn't really understand the notion that everyone had to stop doing what they were doing to participate. Maybe it's just me but I hate feeling like a lemming.
But then I actually attended the Cup one year. Now to be fair to the event, I was 13 weeks pregnant, nauseous, constipated, head aching and we had travelled from Portsea outside Melbourne in a bus and I was sitting facing the back. It was never going to end well. The bus was stopping at the Australia Club to let some colleagues off and I thought I was going to be sick and wanted to go inside to have a quiet chunder in the lovely smelling bathroom there. The Lawyer wanted me to wait until we got to the public toilets at the railway station. So I burst into tears. Everyone got off the bus then.
Back to Flemington. It was raining. Cold. Muddy. I had a new expensive hat. It got wet. I had a short sleeved suit on and was shivering. And crying. I could not stop crying. My poor spouse - he didn't know which way to look because every time he looked at me I started crying more. Because he had wanted me to vomit in a public bathroom.
All around us was rain, mud, and incredibly drunk stupid people falling over and dropping money on a horse race or races that they knew nothing about. And by the end of the day covered in mud, and in some cases vomit. Shoeless women struggling to stand as they left. Men urinating anywhere they chose, which in the case of one man I saw, on his friend's shoes. I didn't get the attraction. I couldn't wait to leave.
I know that tarnished my personal views on the race as an alleged glamourous event. But over the years I have become more and more distressed at the amount of money people, and business, will spend on this race. Just on betting. Not counting outfits, hats, lunch and booze. How many lives could be changed by that money going to the Salvos, Lifeline, The Smith Family, or (now here's a thought) to an animal welfare charity saving the lives of ex horse races destined for the glue factory.
So spare thought for those less fortunate today - make it the 'day that starts the nation thinking'.
And here's a thought. If whoever is responsible for paying for tired 'celebrities' to come out to be an attraction for your precious Melbourne Cup, it's probably best to buy someone who actually likes horse racing and placing a bet, as opposed to Naomi Campbell who was interviewed on TV this morning and said she didn't bet. Good one Naomi!
AMFYOYO
