Melbourne Cup Day | COCKTAIL REVOLUTION

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With Melbourne Cup day upon us as soon as once more, we’re nearly buried within the “glamour” of the spring racing carnival and the race that stops a nation. Melbourne Cup is among the largest days of the yr for Australian vogue. Within the leqad up, miliners are by no means as busy. Malls are properly stocked with fascinators. Enterprise for vogue, footwear and equipment is rarely extra brisk. Luncheon tickets fly off booking-sites sooner than the rest.

There’s little doubt that getting a fun-loving easy-going group of ladies collectively to rejoice getting dressed up of their greatest day-wear is tough to beat. Add to that the sight of males in physique hugging silk fits and crisp white shirts and you’ve got a mix that’s dressed to kill. A public vacation solely in Melbourne, the remainder of the nation finally ends up having an unofficial half-day vacation as properly, because the “race that stops a nation” heralds these at work stations throughout the nation to go away their keyboards and collect across the nearest tv set to observe the race.

With all of the hype surrounding Melbourne Cup, you’d be forgiven for pondering we’d be donning our best to be the primary ones in line. However we’re not. It’s the large day of the yr to which we give an enormous miss. We tried it as soon as. A very long time in the past. It wasn’t the enjoyable we anticipated it to be. Surrounded by drunks exhibiting us with their worst, incessantly misogynistic behaviour, we discovered ourselves being scrutinised like items of meat lined up in a butcher’s cupboard. We discovered ourselves treading with issue on grass surfaces that swallowed our heels and coated them in grime. The day turned out to be a pot pouri of countless unhealthy behaviour, shrieking and unhealthy style, devoid of sophistication or conscience. Each actually and figuratively, turned out to be all horseshit and flies. It’s not one thing that we’d ever suggest attending, for extra essential causes than these. What may they be?

Horse-racing is something however glamorous. It’s a extremely exploitive. Most of its athletes, the horses, wind up lifeless lengthy earlier than their time. And it’s now scientifically confirmed to be merciless to horses.

In line with Animals Australia: “This business, whereas claiming to ‘love horses’, continues to defend the practices of whipping exhausted animals and utilizing barbaric ‘tongue ties’. Such practices spotlight how unnatural racing is for horses – if horses like to run at such speeds, why would whips be used in any respect, and why would tongue ties be required to forestall them from choking?”

“For a big proportion of those that make it to the racetrack, the exertion of racing leads them to bleed into their lungs and windpipe (referred to as Train-Induced Pulmonary Haemorrhage). A examine carried out by the College of Melbourne discovered that fifty% of racehorses had blood within the windpipe, and 90% had blood deeper within the lungs.”

There have been 168 racing-related deaths by horses within the final yr. That’s one loss of life each 2-days.

With round 15,000 foals born every year in Australia, horses that may usually dwell as much as 30 years are killed by the point they’re solely 3 years outdated. That’s, in the event that they make it to the race-track. The norm is for them to “disappear” if they’ll’t run quick sufficient or don’t win sufficient races for his or her homeowners.

“Mass horse slaughter has lengthy been accepted by the horse racing business because the ‘value of doing enterprise’. That is an business that continues to defend the observe of whipping exhausted animals and using barbaric ‘tongue ties’, whereas ignoring the truth that at the very least one horse dies every 2 days on Australian racetracks and that seven horses have died within the final eight Melbourne Cup races alone. It’s unsurprising that this playing business continues to keep away from addressing the underlying drawback, and has even claimed that generally a slaughterhouse is “the most effective welfare consequence” for the horses who now not flip a revenue.

By all means, dress up, celebration and have enjoyable. However are you able to additionally do it as a part of Melbourne Cup festivities figuring out what it’s REALLY all about? Is that the form of glamour you’re glad to be a part of? Not us. We’ll be partying properly away from something related to one of many deadliest sports activities in our nation.

Featured Picture: Les Brown

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