Champers and Fascinators

It's "the race that stops the nation."
For three minutes.
It's a public holiday in Victoria.
We had a special lunch at work.
For...
a horse race?

The Melbourne Cup is more about gambling and fashion than horse racing. Our office also had a sweep (which I did not enter as my blind "betting" in the AFL Grande Final was quite overwhelming). Then there's the hats, or fascinators as they are called. Kids in school have hat contests, much like my hat parade in kindergarten at Ledyard Center School. A colleague's kid had a hat with horses running around a race track. I had horses on a merry-go-round. My question is, how do they get them to stay on their heads?

When I asked what I could bring to our potluck, I suggested something that transports easily on a bike (aka not a platter of coldcuts). So I got orange juice. And champers. Champers...? Yup that's right, a little bubbly champagne for a mid workday lunch. No problem.

 And there's plenty of controversy surrounding the cup. To avoid race fixing, trainers and jockeys must submit their tactics before the race to officials If their actual race differs from their plan, they must have a legitimate justification for the change or they're penalized. This is the guy who won. He's been suspended for the past 12 months for betting on another horse.

This is the winning trainer. It was her first Melbourne Cup win. Her other horse this morning couldn't race because it had been given medications (or something like that). And she couldn't get her training license for years because her husband was involved in a race fixing scandal. But check out that hat!

The horse that won is Fiorente. The winning team gets 3.6 million dollars to split between the 60-ish owners, trainer and jockey. I'm guessing the horse is lucky if he gets an extra big carrot or sugar cube. Maybe if he's lucky he'll get a special fascinator.