Australian horse Vow and Declare has won the 2019 Melbourne Cup the slimmest of margins.
The Hunter Valley-born underdog, ridden by Victorian jockey Craig Williams, saw off Irish horse Master of Reality and Britain’s Prince of Arran, who were separated in a photo finish.
Vow and Declare gave trainer Danny O’Brien-trained his first winner in the race.
Vow And Declare is an Australian-bred four-year-old gelding by Declaration Of War (USA) out of the Testa Rossa mare, Geblitzt.
The grassy lawn in the general admission area, usually crowded with picnic blankets, had some spaces because of the wet conditions.
Most punters didn’t care. They threw plastic ponchos onto the grass and piled picnics on top, 10 metres from the Flemington finish line.
Things were slow to get going in the exclusive Birdcage, where companies pay millions to attract celebrities and compete for bragging rights during the four day Spring Racing Carnival.
A 10-metre-high pair of golden wings towered at one end as a pianist played his first request of the day, New York State of Mind, on a blue baby grand at the Bird Bath Bar.
Meanwhile, dozens of protesters gathered outside Flemington Racecourse, holding mock horse races and waving placards.
A small group gathered along the road leading to the race holding placards proclaiming “horse racing kills” and “jumps racing: legalised cruelty”.
The Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses (CPR), who organised the protest, said a ‘human horse race’ was run at the same time as official Melbourne Cup day races.
Alternative #MelbourneCup held across the road by the Coalition for the Protection of Race Horses protesting the event @rhiannonelston pic.twitter.com/QHxY7IGQ5S
— Abby Dinham (@abbydinham) November 5, 2019
CPR spokeswoman Kristin Leigh said the group had been inundated with support since ABC’s 7.30 program broadcast footage last month of racehorses being sent to a slaughterhouse.
“People are certainly waking up to the truth behind this industry. People can’t say they don’t know anymore,” she told AAP on Monday.
“If you’re going to the races this year and you saw 7.30, you are complicit in that animal abuse.”
The post Australia’s Vow and Declare wins 2019 Melbourne Cup appeared first on The New Daily.
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