The Race that stop a Nation

My first experience of the Melbourne Cup didn't disappoint, it is truly a "Race that stops the Nation". Officially only the Mexicans, sorry Victorians have a public holiday though really the entire country comes to a grinding halt at 2pm on Melbourne Cup Tuesday. Our office put on a BBQ come midday on the day, an office sweep was organised from which I drew a 3 legged donkey-no I reckon a 3 legged donkey would have beaten my horse by 3 lengths!! Once the BBQ was done we all headed to the pub for a punt and a pot. The place was packed at 13.30. We had a couple of beers and for once I backed a horse that came in though no money was to come to hand as I also put a bet on for Sarah who claimed to have insider information on her pony!!! It came in 2nd to last!!! You can see from the above picture that Sar's office also put on a lunch/drinks for staff to see the race and in fact Sarah won $2 in her office sweep. Nededless to sat I was very impressed with Sar's choice of headgear for the day, if this was a pre festive season warm up on the head gear front then it is going to be one hell of a time.
After the race a few more beers were consumed as Troy and I sat and bet on every race televised that afternoon winning and losing. We had it running like clockwork as the races around the country are arranged so there is roughly 5 minues between start times of all races so we would do the 15.00 in Brisbane followed by the 15.05 in Adelaide then the 15.10 in Darwin and so forth. It wasn't quite dark when we left but were forced out as we weren't quite prepared to put our hard earned $'s on the dogs.
It really was a good experience, if you can remember the opening day of the World Cup Rugby 95 it had a very similar feel to that with all roads deserted come 13.30.