periodicalillustrations

The Melbourne Cup was introduced in 1861 by the Victorian Turf Club to trump the success of Victorian Jockey Club races such as the Two Thousand Guineas. As a handicap race, the Melbourne Cup introduced a level of speculation that the club hoped would attract more entries and therefore higher prize money. The two competing organisations disbanded in 1864, before merging to form the Victorian Racing Club, which has controlled racing in Victoria and the Melbourne Cup ever since. Although the Melbourne Cup today is well-known in Australia for being run on the first Tuesday in November, this hasn’t always been the case. The 1866 Melbourne Cup race was run on a Thursday, and in 1867 the Cup was run in October. It wasn’t until 1875 that the race was run on the first Tuesday of November. Although the three-handled loving cup is widely recognised as the traditional cup design, this has only been the case since 1919. Before then the cups came in a variety of styles, with each year having a completely original design. Some years no trophy was presented at all. In fact, for the first few decades of the race, it was more common for no trophy to be awarded. Source: www.nma.gov.au/explore/collection/highlights/1866-melbour...

A rather heavily gendered division of labour?

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