Summary

Booklet issued by the Victoria Racing Club for the Emirates Melbourne Cup Day race meeting, on Tuesday, 1st November, 2005. The original cover price of the booklet was $5.00. These were sold at Flemington on the day, as well as being sold at newsagencies around inner Melbourne from Sunday 30th October, 2005.

Physical Description

Thick booklet containing 84 glossy pages printed in full colour, and 152 thin paper pages printed with black text, contained between two glossy thin card covers. On the front is a full colour photograph of jockey Glenn Boss on the racehorse Makybe Diva after winning the 2004 Melbourne Cup, with `Emirates Melbourne Cup Day' printed in gold below this. The booklet contains various advertisements for sponsors of the race day, and well as details about the races, including jockey and horse statistics.

Significance

The race book and masks relate to the 2005 Melbourne Cup Carnival, held at Flemington Racecourse from the 29th October to the 5th November, 2005. The 2005 Melbourne Cup was significant as the unprecedented third consecutive win by champion racehorse Makybe Diva. Many called it the most significant, and exciting, cup win since Phar Lap's in 1930. Jockey Glenn Boss even dubbed her Phar Lap the 2nd. There were many debates, particularly in the media, over whether Makybe Diva was a greater horse than Phar Lap. The success of Makybe Diva was celebrated by Racing Victoria on the following Saturday as part of the Emirates Stakes Day.

Currently this material falls slightly outside of the appropriate Collection Policy, which states that the Museum will collect "objects associated with the horse and his career, and the process of memorialisation that occurred after his death. Souvenirs, photographs and memories are all collected, and changes in the way Phar Lap is remembered are being recorded" Although this material arguably relates to "changes in the way Phar Lap is remembered", it may be necessary to add a reference to the `Makybe Diva' phenomenon as an important contemporary comparison with the Phar Lap story. It is prosed to use this comparison in the new Phar Lap exhibition due to open in 2008.

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