It’s Melbourne Cup day again. I gave the Melbourne Cup a miss on this blog last year, but I’m back this year and will provide my usual results service including the full finishing order of the horses after the race, which is often useful for the sweeps where a prize is offered for last place (or in some unusual sweeps, one of the other places in the middle of the field somewhere) and is also of some importance this year with some online betting outlets offering a prize for correctly picking the first ten horses in order, the odds of which are astronomically difficult and it deserves a larger prize than is being offered, but with a prize of over a million dollars on Melbourne Cup day, I can see why it would be tempting.
My tips
I’m not going to attempt to pick the first ten horse in order, but I will give you my top three.
I like horse number 12 “Who Shot Thebarman”. Not the most consistent recent form, but with a decent barrier (13) and ridden by Glen Boss, I think he stands a good chance. He has won previously over this distance which is also a plus, and his last two victories were at this track with this jockey, although as a six-year-old there are definitely some more young and spritely horses in the race, but I’m happy to select Who Shot Thebarman as my top pick.
The other two horses I like are number 15 “Precedence” who I don’t think can win but I can think can run a place, and number 20 “Opinion” who, like Who Shot Thebarman, is trained by C.J. Waller.
Scratchings
(Updated 12:02pm)
The Melbourne Cup field is currently now down to 22 horses due to the early scratching of number 6 “Sea Moon”, and the subsequent scratching of number 2 “Cavalryman”.
Broadcast information
The Seven Network is the official television broadcaster of the race which starts at 3pm Melbourne time (2:30pm in South Australia, 2:00pm in Queensland, 1:30pm in the Northern Territory, and 12:00pm in Western Australia) and you can be sure it will be shown on a television in every TAB and most clubs and function venues in the country.
For those who can’t be near a television, many radio stations will be covering it. Your local racing station will definitely have full coverage and a bunch of other stations will be taking the coverage for at least the race, if not some of the pre-race and post-race coverage.
Melbourne: RSN 927AM
Sydney: Sky Sports Radio 1017AM
Canberra: Sky Sports Radio 1008AM and ACTTAB Radio 88.7 FM (limited broadcast range for the latter)
Brisbane: Radio TAB 1008AM
Adelaide: Radio TAB 1539AM
Darwin: Radio TAB 1242AM
Hobart: Radio TAB 1080AM
Perth: TAB Radio 1206AM
For non-capital cities, the frequency of your local racing station can be found at the following sites:
New South Wales (and some towns on the Victorian side of the border): Sky Sports Radio frequency finder [1]
Victoria: Radio Sport National frequency map [2]
Queensland, South Australia, and the Northern Territory: Tattsbet’s Radio TAB frequency list [3]
Western Australia: WA Tab Radio frequency list [4]
Of course you can also listen to the race online. The best station for this is undoubtedly RSN 927 in Melbourne as it is the originating station for the coverage which will be heard on other stations across Australia. They have a Windows Media stream which should work in most players. Click the following link or copy and paste it in to your favourite media player: http://www.rsn.net.au/ListenLive.asx [5]
This stream will get very busy, so if you can’t connect to it or have other problems with it, the other racing stations are your next best bet.
Sky Sports Radio: http://www.skyracing.com.au/index.php?component=content&Itemid=121&id=97 [6] (requires Flash player)
Tattsbet Radio TAB: https://media.tatts.com/Tattsbet/radiotab_http.asx [7] (Windows Media stream)
WA TAB: https://www.tabtouch.com.au/RRLive [8] (to play in a browser with Flash Player) or http://racingradio.rwwa.com.au/live [9] to directly play the MP3 stream.
2GB in Sydney also usually take the race and have a decent capacity for listeners on their stream, so if none of the above work for you, then http://www.2gb.com/listen-live [10] will probably get you the race.
The above stations are all also available via phone apps such as Tunein Radio.
If you’re having a bet today, then best of luck to you, and remember to gamble responsibly.
I’ll have all of the results this afternoon following the race.
Samuel