As a kid who grew up in Australia during the 1980s, one of the classic national rites of passage was choosing a horse in the Melbourne Cup. With our little rainbow racing slips in hand, torn from the day’s newspaper form guide, we’d all sit around and discuss our horse’s likely run and its odds of winning.
Later, as a young journalist covering the fashion rounds in Melbourne, attendance at the Birdcage was a must for celebrities or those hoping to at least be associated with the rich and famous. Along with Fashion Week, the Cup’s hallowed VIP ground was a veritable runway of recognisable faces topped with fancy hats.
Once the race that stopped the nation, the Melbourne Cup has been in decline for over a decade. Credit: Vince Caligiuri
But more recently, a change has been afoot. Slowly but surely, more Australians have been turning away from the Melbourne Cup. For some, it was looking back on those early rose-tinted, childhood memories where the induction into gambling was normalised, and knowing as an adult the havoc an addiction can wreak on people’s lives. For others, myself included, it came after we saw a run of seven horses die on Cup Day over eight years, and which culminated in Taylor Swift cancelling her performance at the carnival in 2019.
But those hoping to lay blame for the Cup’s cultural decline solely on Tay Tay, animal protesters or COVID-19 aren’t paying attention. Attendance levels have been declining for over a decade – long before the #NuptotheCup movement gained traction. After peaks topping 120,000 attendees in 2000 and 2003, crowds have been steadily dropping since 2011, with just 73,816 people attending in 2022. There was an uptick last year (84,492 attendees), but it still wasn’t enough to up the three-year profit loss on the Victoria Racing Club (VRC) balance sheet.
Legendary commentator Bruce McAvaney put it best last week when he declared the Melbourne Cup “no longer stops the nation”, noting that while it was once the biggest sporting event in Victoria, today, it doesn’t even “come close” to the AFL grand final.
Ahead of Tuesday’s race, the VRC has been excitedly touting the narrative that young people are set to return to racing events post-pandemic. That’s certainly who they desperately need if the club is going to survive, but do young people really connect with the sport of horse racing?
Star trainer Gai Waterhouse knows it’s a sport in decline, lamenting to The Daily Mail last week that “poorly educated” young attendees are only there for “the party”, and complained “they’re not really taught about the horses or to have a bet”.
Meanwhile, the celebrity attendees the VRC hopes to draw favourable coverage, such as model Jess Gomes, aren’t really there for the actual trots, either. Last week, Gomes admitted as much when she told the Herald Sun, “I don’t really gamble or punt, to be honest – I’m really just here for the fashion.”
While Katy Perry entertained the crowd before the AFL grand final, the best the Melbourne Cup can do in 2024 is revive early-2000s pop star Anastacia, alongside an appearance from retired ’90s model Liz Hurley for Fashions on the Field. Compared with the attendees of its heyday, which included Princess Diana, Snoop Dogg and Sarah Jessica Parker, it’s a truly lacklustre line-up.
Because here’s the thing: if attendees are only at the Melbourne Cup to enjoy a few flutes of French champers and get snapped in their finery, that can be done anywhere. If celebrities are interested in marquees and hobnobbing, they can easily do that at the grand prix, the grand final or the Australian Open instead – sans animal cruelty concerns and being called out by their fans and followers on social media.
From my experience, most people in the Birdcage don’t even know what time the main race starts, and often the VIP marquees don’t even have a clear view of the track. If that’s not what people are really there for, why should they?
While the VRC has applied increasing scrutiny to horse health in an attempt to dispel those pesky spring carnival protesters (three horses have already been scratched from this year’s Cup), punters are right to wonder if it is really worth all the rigmarole just for a three-minute run?
Personally, I think McAvaney called it correctly. Once the highlight of each November, the Melbourne Cup has quickly become the race that bores the nation.
Bianca O’Neill is a freelance writer based in Melbourne.
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