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This symposium, held in conjunction with the Victoria Racing Club to mark the 150th anniversary of the Melbourne Cup, celebrates the place of this iconic racing event in Australian life and culture, and its enduring fascination for Australians.

Welcome to ‘The Heart of Australian Racing: the Melbourne Cup’ symposium

MC for the day Bryan Martin provides a brief background to the Melbourne Cup and Andrew Sayers, the new Director of the National Museum, outlines why the Museum recently declined to lend Phar Lap’s heart to Melbourne for the horse’s reassembly.
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Presenters: Bryan Martin and Andrew Sayers
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150th running of the Melbourne Cup: special events

Rod Fitzroy, Chairman of the Victoria Racing Club, outlines events taking place during 2010 to mark the 150th Melbourne Cup race, including the launch of a commemorative coin set struck by the Royal Australian Mint and three legacy projects.
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Presenters: Rod Fitzroy
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The Melbourne Cup: what it means to me and what it means to Australia

Former Australian political leader and statesman, Andrew Peacock talks about ‘chasing a dream’ of winning a Melbourne Cup and describes how, unlike the Melbourne Cup, other great horse races around the world don’t stop any nation.
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Presenters: Andrew Peacock
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Where does the Melbourne Cup belong in Australian culture – and why has it endured?

Louise Douglas talks about Phar Lap’s heart and many other objects associated with the Melbourne Cup in the Museum’s National Historical Collection.
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Presenters: Carol Cooper and Louise Douglas
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The Melbourne Cup: Is it all about the gamble?

Social historian Chris McConville combines his great interest in horse racing with his expertise on the history of gambling in Australia to discuss the Melbourne Cup from a gambling point of view.
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Presenters: Chris McConville
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The Melbourne Cup: Why has it endured into the twenty-first century? Good luck or good management?

Rod Fitzroy discusses how it’s a little bit of good luck and a lot of good management that has delivered the Melbourne Cup, for a century and a half, in a way that commands the whole nation.
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Presenters: Rod Fitzroy
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The Melbourne Cup: why?

Having researched and written three volumes covering the social and political history of Australian racing, Andrew Lemon considers why the Melbourne Cup.
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Presenters: Andrew Lemon
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What the Melbourne Cup means to me

Hear what the Melbourne Cup means to the owner of a cup winner, the first female trainer to win both the Melbourne and Caulfield Cups, the grandson of the inaugural Melbourne Cup winning trainer, and a former jockey who has won the Melbourne Cup twice.
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Presenters: Mark de Mestre, Wendy Green, Sheila Laxon and John Letts in conversation with Bryan Martin
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On the Punt: Chance, racing and the horse in Australian life and culture

Hear a racing administrator, the author of The Horse in Australia, a bookie and a sports publisher discuss the public fascination with the Cup as not only a day of fashion, socialising, networking and fun but also a time to chance their luck with a bet.
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Presenters: Fiona Carruthers, Bob Charley, Alan Eskander and Geoff Slattery in conversation with James Warden
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