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1954 Melbourne Cup
The 1954 Melbourne Cup was a two-mile handicap horse race which took place on Tuesday, 2 November 1954. Rising Fast became the first and to date only horse to complete The Spring Grand Slam by winning the Caulfield Cup and Cox Plate before winning the Melbourne Cup which was part of a string of seven straight wins. Behind him was 7/1 shot Hellion by 1 1/4 lengths and 200/1 outsider Gay Helios. The race is also noteworthy because the great racecaller Bill Collins called his first Melbourne Cup. This is the list of placegetters for the 1954 Melbourne Cup. See also * Melbourne Cup * List of Melbourne Cup winners * Victoria Racing Club References 1954 Events January * January 1 – The Soviet Union ceases to demand war reparations from West Germany. * January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting. * January 7 – Georgetown-IBM experiment: The fir ... Melbourne Cup Melbourne Cup 20th century in Melbourne 1950s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melbourne Cup
The Melbourne Cup is a Thoroughbred horse race held in Melbourne, Australia. It is a 3200-metre race for three-year-olds and over, conducted by the Victoria Racing Club on the Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, Victoria as part of the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival. It is the richest "two-mile" handicap in the world and one of the richest turf races. The event starts at 3:00 pm on the first Tuesday of November and is known locally as "the race that stops the nation". The Melbourne Cup has a long tradition, with the first race held in 1861. It was originally run over but was shortened to in 1972 when Australia adopted the metric system. This reduced the distance by , and Rain Lover's 1968 race record of 3:19.1 was accordingly adjusted to 3:17.9. The present record holder is the 1990 winner Kingston Rule with a time of 3:16.3. Qualifying and race conditions The race is a quality handicap for horses three years old and over, run over a distance of 3200 metres, on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flemington Racecourse
Flemington Racecourse is a major horse racing venue located in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is most notable for hosting the Melbourne Cup, which is the world's richest handicap and the world's richest 3200-metre horse race. The racecourse is situated on low alluvial flats, next to the Maribyrnong River. The area was first used for horse racing in March 1840. Overview The Flemington Racecourse site comprises 1.27 square kilometres of Crown land. The course was originally leased to the Victoria Turf Club in 1848, which merged with the Victoria Jockey Club in 1864 to form the Victoria Racing Club. The first Melbourne Cup was run in 1861. In 1871 the Victoria Racing Club Act was passed, giving the VRC legal control over Flemington Racecourse. The racecourse is pear-shaped, and boasts a six-furlong (1,200 m) straight known as 'the Straight Six.' The track has a circumference of and a final straight of for race distances over . Races are run in an anti-clockwise ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rising Fast
Rising Fast (1949 - 1978) was a champion New Zealand-bred Thoroughbred racehorse who is the only horse to complete the Spring Grand Slam, winning the Melbourne Cup, Caulfield Cup, and Cox Plate in 1954. He also won the 1955 Caulfield Cup and came second in the 1955 Melbourne Cup. Breeding Rising Fast was bred by brothers Frank and Bruce Robertson at their Platform Lodge farm at Greytown in the Wairarapa. He was a bay or brown gelding by Alonzo (GB) and from the mare Faster, by Mr. Standfast. Alonzo was a poorly performed racehorse having only won one race on the flat and one over the hurdles in England. Faster was unplaced at her only two starts, but produced seven winners from ten foals. Rising Fast was purchased at the 1950 New Zealand National Sales for 325 guineas by first time racehorse owner, Leicester R. Spring. 1954 racebook Image:1954 VRC Melbourne Cup Racebook P1.jpg, Front cover of the 1954 VRC Melbourne Cup racebook. Image:1954 VRC Melbourne Cup Racebook P2.jp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Purtell
John Michael Purtell (1921 – 8 March 2017) was an Australian jockey who rode three Melbourne Cup winners. Career Purtell, also known as 'Gentleman Jack’, rode his first race in 1936 at the age of 15. He was an apprentice jockey to Ted Temby at his Mordialloc, Victoria stables. He won his first race on Bonus at Mentone, Victoria in April 1937. Purtell rode more than 1700 winners including three Melbourne Cups. He was suspended only once. The best horse he rode was Comic Court to 19 wins even though he opted not to ride it in the 1950 Melbourne Cup. He won seven Melbourne Jockey Premierships – 1946/47, 1948/49, 1949/50, 1950/51, 1954/55, 1960/61 and 1961/62. In January 1953, he suffered severe head injuries in a race fall at Caulfield Racecourse. Purtell rode Fighting Force when it triple dead-heated with both Pandie Sun and Ark Royal in the 1956 Hotham Handicap, a rare event in racing. He retired in 1966 at the age of 45 and he became a Stipendiary Steward at the Vi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1953 Melbourne Cup
Events January * January 6 – The Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma. * January 12 – Estonian émigrés found a government-in-exile in Oslo. * January 14 ** Marshal Josip Broz Tito is chosen President of Yugoslavia. ** The CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel first meets to discuss the UFO phenomenon. * January 15 – Georg Dertinger, foreign minister of East Germany, is arrested for spying. * January 19 – 71.1% of all television sets in the United States are tuned into ''I Love Lucy'', to watch Lucy give birth to Little Ricky, which is more people than those who tune into Dwight Eisenhower's inauguration the next day. This record has yet to be broken. * January 20 – Dwight D. Eisenhower is sworn in as the 34th President of the United States. * January 24 ** Mau Mau Uprising: Rebels in Kenya kill the Ruck family (father, mother, and six-year-old son). ** Leader of East Germany Walter Ulbricht announces that agriculture wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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