Adorning a wall of the Betting Ring at Flemington Racecourse are the racing colours of a select few Melbourne Cup winning horses. With 159 Melbourne Cup races run so far, there are 153 horses that have stopped two nations on the first Tuesday in November. The 28 horses featured on the wall here each have unique attributes, their reason for being featured. On every tour we stop to take a look at them but there is a lot to discuss and not every guest is deeply interested so we usually only cover the basics of the more prominent names on display.

We wanted to delve a bit deeper though, to provide the information for those who are interested in learning more about these horses and what makes them worthy of being remembered in this way.

The order of appearance from left to right also coincides with the chronological order in which each horse won their Melbourne Cup/s. Our descriptions will follow the same order.

Archer

*Winner of the first and second ever Melbourne Cups in 1861 and 1862. Trained by Etienne De Mestre and ridden by John Cutts on both occasions.*

Archer, a bay stallion, was foaled at Exeter Farm in New South Wales in 1856. His Sire was an imported horse from Great Britain called William Tell and his Dam was Australian mare Maid of the Oaks.

Archer started his training at Terara, under Etienne de Mestre, in 1860. He was a tall horse whom the locals nicknamed “The Bull”. Perhaps they should have called him “Big Dog” as accounts of Archer claim that he galloped with his tongue lolling out of his mouth!

His first two races in late May 1860 did not earn him any fans but by the Spring season he had improved immensely and he won each of his next 7 starts, all of which took place in New South Wales.

The inaugural Melbourne Cup offered the largest purse for any race in Australia, at that time, with the prizes being 710 pounds and a handmade watch for first place and 20 pounds for second. This large prize inspired many entries from interstate including Archer, who travelled more than 500 miles by steamboat and train from Terara (now a suburb of Nowra, NSW) to be a part of the fun.

That very first run of the 1861 Melbourne Cup race was quite eventful. In front of a crowd of roughly 4000 spectators, eighteen from a possible twenty horses started the race after Defence and Partisan were both scratched. Twilight, Dispatch and Medora all fell and the latter two died. At 5-1 odds, Archer defeated the 3-1 favourite Mormon by six lengths, taking 3 minutes and 52 seconds to run the 2-mile race. To this day, no horse has come home slower in the Melbourne Cup.

*On the 100th Anniversary of the Melbourne Cup, Australia Post released a set of stamps featuring some beloved past winners, Archer being one of them.*

Archer returned in 1862 to defend his title and started the race as 2-1 favourite. This year, first place would earn 810 pounds with 20 pounds again for second place. After three scratchings; Shadow, Clive and Exeter, twenty horses started in the second Melbourne Cup. Once again, Archer stormed home in front of Mormon (this time 4-1 odds) and won the Melbourne Cup for a second time, this time by 8 lengths in 3 minutes and 47 seconds.

Archers winning margin in the second Melbourne Cup has never been beaten and was not matched for more than 100 years until Rain Lover won in 1968. It would also be more than 70 years before another horse would win 2 Melbourne Cups (Peter Pan in 1934) and more than 100 years before a horse would win them back-to-back (Rain Lover in 1969).

De Mestre fully intended to bring Archer back to Melbourne for the 1863 Melbourne Cup but there was a public holiday in Victoria which caused his admission paperwork be delayed and it subsequently arrived past the deadline. As a result, Archer was denied entry to the race. This caused quite a stir in the racing community and especially amongst the interstate trainers, all of whom pulled their horses from the race in protest. Consequently, the 1863 Melbourne Cup saw a field of only 7 horses, the smallest Melbourne Cup field in its long history.

Archer enjoyed a fairly successful racing record of 12 wins and 3 thirds from a total of 17 starts. He was scratched from his final race and retired to stud shortly thereafter on the same farm where he was born, for the then-high fee of 10 guineas per mare. It is unproven, but generally believed, that he was buried on the farm when he passed on December 22nd 1972.

Archer’s trainer Etienne de Mestre would go on to train three more Melbourne Cup winners: Tim Whiffler in 1867, Chester in 1877 and Calamia in 1878. His record of 5 trainer wins would stand for nearly 100 years, until Bart Cummings matched it in 1975 with Think Big’s second win.

Carbine

*Winner of the 1890 Melbourne Cup. Trained by Walter Hickenbotham and ridden by Bob Ramage.*

Carbine was a bay stallion sired by Musket and foaled by Mersey, both horses having been imported from Great Britain. He was bred at Sylvia Park Stud near Auckland in New Zealand and born there on 18 September 1885.

Carbine first raced as a 2-year-old in New Zealand, winning all of his 5 starts there before moving to Australia mid-way through 1888. In Australia, he won or placed in all 13 of his races as a 3-year-old, first at Flemington and then at Randwick.

Initially he was owned and trained by Dan O’Brien. O’Brien sold him for 3000 guineas to the wealthy Donald Wallace, who in addition to being a Member of the Victorian Parliament, was also an investor and horse-breeder. Wallace entrusted Carbine’s training to the former jockey and then Melbourne based trainer Walter Hickenbotham, who had already successfully trained one Melbourne Cup winner for him, Mentor in 1888. For different owners, Hickenbotham also achieved Melbourne Cup success in 1896 with Newhaven and again in 1905 with Blue Spec. Watch Newhaven win on one of the earliest films of the Melbourne Cup finish.

*Nicknamed “Old Jack” he would freeze stock still in a crowd of onlookers so he could enjoy their cheers and applause, refusing to move until the cheering died down.*

The thing that always strikes about Carbine is his racing record: 33 wins, 6 second places and 3 third finishes from 43 starts, meaning he was only unplaced once when he finished fourth. That’s an impressive record on its own but when you look deeper, Carbine’s racing record gets more impressive. When they’re younger, many horses will win shorter races on their road to staying races like the Melbourne Cup, gradually increasing the distances as they progress through their training. But it’s very rare to see a horse flit back and forwards between distances throughout their whole career, even rarer still to see them succeeding at it. As an example, below is Carbine’s racing record as a 5-year-old right up to his retirement.

On four separate occasions, Carbine raced in two races on the same day, winning 7 of the 8. March 9th 1889, he won the 1600m All Aged Stakes and the 3200m Loch Plate at Flemington. March 8th 1890, he repeated the wins in the same two races at Flemington. One month later, 10 April 1890, he won the 1600m All Aged Stakes and 3200m Cumberland Stakes at Randwick. Finally, two days before his final ever race, Carbine came second in the All Aged Stakes at Randwick but won the Cumberland Stakes the same day, 2 April 1891.

When Carbine won the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday, 4 November 1890, he did so against the largest ever field in the Cup’s history; 39 horses started that year. He also carried the heavy handicap of 10 stone 5 pounds (65.77kg) and holds the record for the heaviest ever load of a horse to win the Melbourne Cup. Highborn, who placed second by 2 and a half lengths behind Carbine, carried 6st8lb which is roughly 24 kilos lighter. A record 39 runners and carrying a record weight, Carbine even matched the (then) race record time of 3 minutes and 28.25 seconds which had been set in 1887. And he did so with a split heel which was held together by a heavy bar shoe.

*Carbine Winning Cup 1890 [picture]. (1890). Source: The State Library of Victoria.*

This Herculean effort has earned Carbine the right to be remembered at Flemington forevermore. In addition to his racing colours on display in the Betting Ring, Flemington also established The Carbine Club in 1961, its members bonded by their affections for grace, courage, good sport (not just on turf) and good fellowship.

Visitors to Flemington will also see his old stall, which on quieter race days is open to the public. Housed inside you will find a small museum paying tribute to Carbine and his trainer Walter Hickenbotham. The stall was originally located nearby and was occupied by Carbine while he was under the care of Hickenbotham. When Hickenbotham’s former Sandown Road stables were dismantled in the 1990’s, Flemington Racecourse had the stall relocated to their site, where Carbine had raced almost half of his races (21 of Carbines 43 races took place at Flemington; 16 at Randwick, 1 at Caulfield, 4 at Canterbury, NZ and 1 in Dunedin, NZ).

*Carbine’s former stall which overlooks the lawn’s, the straight and also a statue of one of his many descendants.*

In addition to this old stable, Carbine’s memory (and body) has been preserved in other ways. His skeleton resides here in Melbourne, although it is not currently on display. The Victorian Racing Club supposedly possess one of his hooves which was made into an inkwell. And according to their website, Auckland Museum have his mounted head and his tail. As many times as I’ve admired Carbine’s skeleton when it has been on display, I still much prefer the tradition of burying a beloved horse standing up near to his or her favourite tree.

*Carbine’s skeleton, formerly on display at the Australian Racing Museum within the National Sports Museum beneath the MCG.*

It is partly these feats which earned him an inaugural place in the Australian Racing Hall of Fame and also the New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame. Sadly, the recurring heel problem saw Wallace and Hickenbotham withdraw Carbine from the 1891 Melbourne Cup around the August of that year. After his retirement from racing in 1891, Carbine spent his days at Lerderberg Stud (also owned by Donald Wallace), near Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, where he stood alongside Wallace’s other Cup Winner, Mentor. In 1895, Wallace sold Carbine to the Duke of Portland for 13,000 guineas and Carbine was shipped to England to serve the Duke as a stud at Welbeck Abbey.

Carbine set sail from Station Pier in Port Melbourne on Saturday 13 April, 1895 and it is estimated that 10,000 people gathered to wave him off and maybe have one last pat. Naysayers will state they can’t all have been there for Carbine; the weather was fine, it was Easter weekend and with very little in the way of entertainment in those days, seeing the ships arrive and depart from Station Pier was a pastime in itself. They might be right, but the popular 1900s phrase “As big as Carbine” (which was used to reference someone or something particularly popular or famous) must have stemmed from somewhere.

*Embarking on the Orizaba. [picture]. (1895). Source: The State Library of Victoria*

Despite the 200 guineas service fee (the highest ever service fee at that time), Carbines success as a stud proved itself time and again with his foals first appearing at the Melbourne Cup in the same year that he left Australia (1895). None of his immediate progeny ever won a Melbourne Cup but he did sire winners of many great Australian races as well as the Epsom Derby and Grand Prix de Paris. His foals and their foals and their foals and so on, have all been very sought-after and successful based merely on their lineage from Carbine. One example is Phar Lap, who was purchased sight-unseen, wholly because he descended from Carbine on both sides of his ancestry. Every dual winner of the Melbourne Cup that followed Carbine, can be traced back to him. Many of the notable Melbourne Cup winners since Carbine… his blood is in most of them, as the table below will show.

*Of the 128 Melbourne Cup races since Carbine won, 85 (two-thirds) have been won by horses descending from Carbine; including every single Melbourne Cup winner this century.*

For a horse who didn’t like rain falling on his ears, Carbine settled in to English life quite well and loved to roll in fresh snow. For nearly twenty years Carbine spent his days at the stud farm in Nottinghamshire, England until he suffered a stroke and was euthanised on 10 June 1914. He was almost 29 years old.

The Notable Exclusion

A 3-year-old mare called Briseis raced on all 4 days of the Melbourne Cup carnival and won 3 of the 4 major Cup Carnival races; VRC Derby on the Saturday, Melbourne Cup on the Tuesday and VRC Oaks on the Thursday. She also carried the youngest ever jockey to win a Melbourne Cup; Peter St Albans was not quite 13 years old when he rode Briseis to a 2-length Melbourne Cup victory in 1876.

Over 159 years of the Melbourne Cup, only 23 three-year-old horses have won the Melbourne Cup, the last being Skipton in 1941; meaning all of them won in the first 80 years of the race’s history. Over those same 159 years, only 10 mares have won the Melbourne Cup… and Briseis was the first of them.