Cover image courtesy of Victoria Racing Club
1. Safety improvements are paying off
Even with the fall of Pondalowie (Deep Field) in the G1 Empire Rose Stakes on the first day, the four-day Cup week concluded with all 490 horses home safe after each day. Pondalowie was treated by veterinarians and returned home with her trainers Emma-Lee and David Browne.
This comes off the back of the two-day Breeders’ Cup meeting in America, where all 177 runners came home safely.
Across two of the biggest racing carnivals in the world, that is 667 elite runners home safely. An outstanding result for racing and one worth celebrating.
The G1 Melbourne Cup, which was plagued with injuries between 2013 and 2020, has been fatality-free since 2021 - when Racing Victoria introduced its more stringent veterinary screening procedures.
They are clearly working.
The changes followed an extensive review of the Melbourne Cup’s safety record and included additional veterinary examinations, diagnostic imaging and greater scrutiny of international runners.
Five consecutive Melbourne Cups without a fatality is an achievement the industry should be proud of, particularly given the considerable investment and work involved in improving safety.
Jockey Harry Coffey sustained an injured collarbone in the fall from Pondalowie, but with surgery the next day, he was able to ride on Tuesday, finishing sixth in the G1 Melbourne Cup on Shockletz (NZ) (Shocking). Jockeys are made of tough stuff.
There will always be risks in any sport, but Racing Victoria’s veterinary procedures are helping minimise those risks for our horses. With public concern about animal welfare continuing to influence perceptions of racing, these improvements are particularly important.
2. Cup week crowds hit a nine-year high
The crowds are returning to Flemington, with the 2026 Melbourne Cup Carnival recording its highest attendance since 2017.
A total of 307,889 people attended across the four days, with every meeting recording its biggest crowd in several years.
Cup Day attracted 97,112 racegoers, the largest attendance since 2016 and an increase of more than 23,000 on the 73,816 who attended in 2022.
Derby Day welcomed 88,146 people, its largest crowd since 2018, while Oaks Day attracted 52,217, the biggest since 2019. Champions Day was another standout, with 70,414 attendees, its largest crowd since 2012.
The figures are particularly encouraging given the difficulties racing has faced in attracting crowds back to the track following the COVID pandemic. The 2026 results suggest the Melbourne Cup Carnival has well and truly recovered its appeal as one of Australia’s major sporting and social events.
“The 2026 Melbourne Cup Carnival has once again demonstrated why it is one of the world’s great sporting events, and the biggest racing carnival in the world, with more than 300,000 racegoers attending across the four days, marking our largest Carnival crowd since 2017,” Victoria Racing Club Chief Executive Kylie Rogers said in a press release.
The VRC has invested heavily in making the carnival an entertainment event as well as a racing spectacle, with major international performers, fashion competitions and hospitality experiences adding to the attraction.
With almost 100,000 people attending Cup Day alone, there is clearly still a considerable appetite for the Melbourne Cup Carnival.
Did these improved attendance figures translate into wagering increases? Readers will have to wait until the figures are released later this week before we know the answer.
3. Flemington’s track stands up to the test
Melbourne’s spring weather played its usual game of four seasons in one day, or as one punter described it, ‘30-second weather’, where conditions seem to change twice a minute.
Derby Day was run on a Good 4, but 40 mm of rain on Cup Day left the track rated a Soft 5 for both Tuesday and Thursday. A drying wind helped return the surface to a Good 4 for Champions Day on Saturday.
Across the wider five-meeting carnival, including Cox Plate Day, Flemington’s track team had to manage 46 races, a considerable workload for any turf surface.
“It was our first five day carnival for our team but it’s worked out well. It was just pleasing to get through the five-day carnival and see the track race as well as it did,” track manager Liam O’Keefe said on Monday.
“The five-day carnival, it was great to get through because running 46 races on any turf track is tough going. It’s great to know we can do it if we have to.
“The weather was topsy-turvy but we haven’t had to do too much irrigating since after Cox Plate Day. The weather has been hit and miss but the track has raced well.
“The riders were happy and the racing was competitive so it has been good. There was a bit of wear and tear on the inside so they got off the inside looking for fresh ground (on Stakes Day), which was fine.”
However, the final day wasn’t without some debate about track conditions.
The outside of the track appeared to be the worst place to race, with aeration work potentially creating a tricky lane for horses drawn or travelling wide.
This may have contributed to the disappointing performances of several favourites on Champions Day, with local riders using their knowledge of Flemington to find better ground up the middle.
The track will now have a rest until New Year’s Day and will undergo renovation work in the meantime.
A full refurbishment is scheduled for after next year’s Melbourne Cup Carnival and is expected to take around four months.
4. Waller and Maher dominate the big races
There were 490 runners in the 37 races across the four days of Cup week, an average field size of 13.2 runners. A further 95 horses were accepted into fields and subsequently scratched, including emergencies.
Around the traps, there has been plenty of talk about the dominance of the big stables in Australia’s major races, and the Cup week figures show just how dominant they have become.
Ciaron Maher had the most runners across the carnival with 51, winning four races, while Chris Waller won eight races from 33 runners. The Hayes brothers at Lindsay Park had 25 runners for four wins.
Waller, Maher and Lindsay Park combined to win 16 of the 37 races, accounting for more than 43% of the programme.
However, it was in the eight Group 1 races that the Maher and Waller stables really dominated, winning six between them.
Ciaron Maher | Image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
Waller won four Group 1 races: the G1 Empire Rose Stakes with Lady Shenandoah (Snitzel), the G1 VRC Derby with Stormy Marco (Wootton Bassett {GB}), the G1 Champions Mile with Autumn Glow (The Autumn Sun) and the G1 Champions Stakes with Birdman (Ire) (Free Eagle {Ire}).
The four Group 1 wins took him to 27 for the calendar year, one behind Irish giant Aidan O’Brien.
“I think it’s one short of Aidan,” Waller told racing.com after Birdman’s win.
“I am happy to sit second to Aidan. It would be a great thing. We’ve got an awesome team and I am so proud of them. It’s pretty amazing. We’ve got another chance for a Group 1 next Saturday at Sandown where we’ll have two horses (Angel Capital and Beiwacht in the Orr Stakes).”
Maher won two Group 1 races: the G1 Coolmore Stud Stakes with The Next Episode (Snitzel) and the G1 Melbourne Cup with Point Of Law (GB) (Frankel {GB}).
His Melbourne Cup result was particularly impressive. Maher saddled seven runners in the race and trained the trifecta, taking home first, second and third in Australia’s most famous race.
“Not just winning it. I guess running second or third, like, that shows total dominance. So, yeah, he’s got a great team, Ciaron, and yeah, got the right horses and doing a great job,” Waller said in tribute to Maher’s achievement.
The remaining two Group 1 races went to David Payne with Proxima Dea (Tarzino {NZ}) in the G1 VRC Oaks and Anthony and Sam Freedman with Point Barrow (Blue Point {Ire}) in the G1 Champions Sprint.
Across the carnival, 147 different trainers were represented, and 22 celebrated a winner. Seventeen of those trainers won one race, while the Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott, and Mick Price and Michael Kent Jnr stables, each trained two winners.
At the other end of the scale, four trainers won a race with their only runner across the four days.
David Payne won the G1 VRC Oaks with Proxima Dea, Joseph Pride claimed the G2 Damien Oliver Stakes with Private Eye (Al Maher), Bryce Heys won the G3 Begonia Belle Stakes with Flying For Fun (Spieth {NZ}), and Taige Weir took out the Listed TAB Trophy with Billycart (Dundeel {NZ}).
Chris Waller and James McDonald | Image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
Waller won his sixth J B Cummings Award for leading trainer of the Melbourne Cup Carnival with 35 points. Melbourne Cup-winning trainer Maher finished second on 20 points, with Ben, JD and Will Hayes taking third on 15 points.
James McDonald secured his sixth Ron Hutchison Award as the carnival’s leading jockey, finishing with six winners. Scored on a 3-2-1 basis across 37 races, McDonald topped the leaderboard with 25 points, ahead of Mark Zahra on 18 and Blake Shinn on 17.
For smaller trainers, the four winners who succeeded with their only carnival runner offered a welcome reminder that there is still room for an upset.
5. Entertainment draws the crowds
Racing is in the entertainment business, and away from the track, there was plenty of action across the four days.
Robbie Williams had the crowd singing along on Cup Day, while Australian DJ Fisher sealed the carnival with a massive set on Champions Day.
Both performances added to the growing entertainment offering at Flemington, with the VRC continuing to attract racegoers who might otherwise have little interest in attending a race meeting.
The Melbourne Cup Carnival Fashions on the Field also introduced a new category, The Remix, presented by Rack It Club.
The category asked racegoers to reinterpret and modernise traditional racewear in both the Best Dressed and Best Suited competitions, with individuality and creativity among the key elements judges were looking for.
The inaugural winner of The Remix Best Suited was former Chicago resident, now Sydney local Rob Lee, wearing a suit bought in a Sydney op shop.
Townsville’s Marnie Davidson won The Remix Best Dressed.
The introduction of the new category was a clever way to encourage more people to participate in Fashions on the Field, particularly those who might not have the budget for expensive designer racewear.
With the carnival attracting its biggest crowds in nine years, the VRC’s investment in entertainment appears to be paying off.
The opportunity for racing is to encourage some of those people to come back to Flemington outside Cup week, when the racing itself has to be the main attraction.
