[Breaking news update at 12:11 am ET ]
Almandin has narrowly defeated Heartbreak City to win the 2016 Melbourne Cup.
It’s the second Cup win for jockey Kerrin McEvoy who rode Brew to victory 16 years ago in the 2000 race.
[Previous story, published at 11:10 pm ET ]
Millions of Australians will be transfixed Tuesday as they stop to watch the Melbourne Cup, the country’s richest and most anticipated horse race.
Twenty-four horses will bolt out of the gates at 3 p.m. local time, while punters cheer, cringe and hold their breath over the two-mile stretch at Flemington Racecourse.
Last year, jockey Michelle Payne made history as the first woman to win the race on 100-1 outsider Prince of Penzance.
This year, there’s one female contender, 22-year-old Katelyn Mallyon on six-year-old Irish gelding Assign.
When Payne won she lambasted the “chauvinists” in the racing world who didn’t believe a woman could do it. “Get stuffed,” she famously said in post-match interviews.
“It’s a very male-dominated sport and people think we’re not strong enough and all the rest of it blah, blah, blah,” Payne said.
The riding breeches Payne wore to win the race have since been sold to the National Museum of Australia for a reported A$40,000 (US$30,400).
This year’s field is considered wide open, with the best odds on British geldings Hartnell and Oceanographer and Australian mare Jameka.
For the first time, the event will be livestreamed on Twitter.
The Melbourne Cup was first run in 1861 and is held on the first Tuesday of November during the Spring Carnival at Flemington Park.
The four-day carnival attracts more than 310,000 fans to Flemington. The day of the Melbourne Cup is a public holiday in the state of Victoria so residents can watch the race.
Every year, the race attracts calls for an end to animal cruelty amid claims the horses are being pushed ever harder to win the title, and with it a first prize of A$3.6 million (US$2.75 million).
