Melbourne Cup dream! - LittleWanderingWren

‘Winning at the Melbourne Cup has always been a dream’

M.J. Payne

Watching the race from the rails

‘Once the Melbourne Cup starts it is hard to explain,

it is not like any other race…

Watching the presentation of the Jockeys from Members

Then at the 300m I thought, I don’t think anything can beat me now’

M.J. Payne

Flemington magic

Our Melbourne Cup morning starts at the iconic downtown Windsor Hotel.

We enter the lobby and are offered a glass of champagne.

Mr Wren starts to explain we are not hotel guests

‘Sir, you are in the Windsor now’ he is told.

Hats off to that service!

Table display in the foyer at the Windsor Hotel along with my hat!

‘The race that stops the nation’

and catapults one Michelle Payne into the limelight

as the first female jockey to win the Cup,

is six hours away.

Our breakfast with friends at the Windsor Hotel is lovely and relaxed.

It would have been a very different start for the connections of

Prince of Penzance the 100-1 outsider,

bought for $50,000 by a group of Aussie mates,

and about to make one of the biggest upsets

in the 155 year race history.
Oh the nerves!

In a paddock many kilometres away our (well we have a tiny bit of her!)
two year old filly, as yet unnamed,
but I will call her Little Miss Pebbles,
is enjoying a quiet spell in a grassy paddock.
‘Eat your greens and go girl!’

I can’t imagine the excitement of having a horse running
on Melbourne Cup day but we can all dream!

Little Miss Pebbles

This is Australia’s greatest horse race,
and after seeing foreign horses claim the Cup,
in three out of five of the last Melbourne Cups,
Prince of Penzance and Michelle Payne
claimed an important win for local talent
and for our local horse racing industry.