Rekindling Wins Melbourne Cup 2017

People gathered in fancy hats, dresses and suits at the Flemington race track ready to drink champagne and watch Australia’s most prestigious annual horse race.

Despite grey skies punters flocked the grounds ready for the ‘race that stops a nation’.

The Cup has seen some sites since it’s beginning in 1840, this year present to protestors unfurling a banner on a crane overlooking the tracks reading, ‘SOS: EVACUATE MANUS NOW!’, and creating major train delays as a car blocked the tracks protesting Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers and refugees.

Earlier in the day Regal Monarch took a nasty fall in the Ronald McDonald Charities House Plate, which ended in a trip to a vet hospital in Werribee and Brazilin jockey Joao Moreira missing the race. Ben Allen, apprentice jockey, substituted in his place.

The race began with Marmelo as favourite, followed closely by Almandin and Humidor as third pick.

The 2017 Cup, held at 3pm, presented the following results:

First

Rekindling

Lloyd Williams has obtained his sixth Cup trophy with winner Rekindling, rode by jockey Corey Brown and trained by Joseph O’Brien.

Second

Johannes Vermeer

Third

Max Dynamite

Fourth

Big Duke