ONE DAY IN NOVEMBER

I must be getting old. I realised on my annual ritual journey to The Cup on Tuesday that I have been doing this for thirty years.

My first Melbourne Cup foray was in 1973. I came all the way from New York for The First Tuesday in November that year and my estranged wife, Lana Wells, was not only the Women’s Editor of the Melbourne Herald but an influential relative (by marriage) was Sir James Hardy’s mother, Aunty Eileen Hardy. They have named some great wine after her.

She arrived that year in great pomp and circumstance by helicopter and bequeathed her treasured parking spot in the Birdcage parking lot to us.

We took hampers full of chicken and asparagus sandwiches and even silver chalices for the champagne.

In that inaugural Melbourne Cup experience – on a flying visit from Manhattan – I met ACTU boss Bob Hawke, the Russian poet Yevteshenko and media baron Sir Warwick Fairfax in fifteen minutes and thought “how long has this been going on?”

Far from wondering how his 26-year-old New York Bureau Chief could afford to “come home for The Cup” Sir Wakka was understanding and complimentary.

When I returned to live in Australia and settled in Melbourne the Cup ritual was well established. A November marathon! We would got to Cup Day breakfasts around 7a.m. before crawling in massive traffic jams to get a decent possie in the Member’s Car Park for the Rolls Royce.

In fact, about six Rollers would line up, gleaming, near the Channel Ten tent, with boots open and wicker baskets of goodies and Eskies of chilled champers on display.

At some stage of the day you would stroll on the lawn in front of the Members before joining the “bubbly scrum” at the tiny Champagne Bar for slim ham sandwiches and party pies.

And yes there were/are drunks with men foolishly dressed as nuns and women dressed (or undressed) as hookers but it really is the Race That Stops a Nation. I remember writing an article about the phenomenon for an American magazine forty years ago.

We all have Cup stories. My two best are good and bad. One afternoon

(being chauffeured home in the Rolls) we crawled up the curving drive to Flemington Road when the car in front scuttled a pretty pedestrian. And kept going.

I told my wife to phone the police on her mobile with the probably drunk driver’s licence number and chivalrously jumped to the wounded woman’s assistance.

I used my grey morning suit coat for a pillow for her bleeding head. And pulled her skirt down to preserve her modesty. She turned out to be a regular at our Friday Rat Pack lunches in South Melbourne.

My favourite – and most financially lucrative -- Melbourne Cup story took place miles from Flemington.

It was the week before That First Tuesday. Dennis Gowing (alias Kevin Dennis) was dining with his equine partner Lloyd Williams and their jockey at Gowing’s East Melbourne eponymous restaurant.

I joined them post-lunch for a glass of chardonnay. The trio boasted they would win the Melbourne Cup.

I had not long returned from watching thousands of people die in the Ethiopian famine and challenged them to give me money.

Williams pledged ten per cent of his winnings (if What a Nuisance won the Cup) to the Save the Children fund. Gowing then pledged ten per cent of HIS winnings to The Variety Club.

They were promising $65,000 each. The horse won. I could not have been happier if I had physically been in the saddle. And both honoured the commitment.

That night I experienced what it must feel like travelling with the Pope. We went to the traditional trainers’ dinner at the then- Southern Cross. We went to the traditional victory dinner for the winners at Maxim.

By this stage, Growing was getting grumpy. He felt he had been promised possession of The Cup for the first six months. Williams’ wife seemed to have other ideas.

At Maxim’s, when everybody’s attention was devoted to the waiters, I nudged Gowing, grabbed the cup and sprinted for the limo.

As we barrelled down Toorak Road towards his own restaurant I waved the trophy out the window not knowing how much it was worth and lucky that a tram didn’t come along and snatch it from me.

As for the record-setting 2003 Melbourne Cup I pent most of the afternoon at the Toohey’s New Marquee and at Emirates. And met the usual suspects: Eddie McGuire, Sigrid Thornton, Sonia McMahon, Susan Renouf, Tara Moss, Kate Kendall, Cathy Freeman, Lleyton Hewitt, Steve Vizard, Gary Sweet, Mark Holden, Lillian Frank etcetera.

Didn’t meet the Sheraton Sluts.

And did not make one winning bet. I bet most on Holy Orders because I figured it was the freshest, most rested, horse in the race. Had only had one short gallop in about two weeks!

But being an omen and hunch punter I also put a swag on a horse for my ex-wife, Jacki Weaver. Jacki Weaver, actress-diva. And of course Makybe Diva won. So an ex-wife is still making money out of me. Only joking.

It was a great summery Cup Day. Lots of fun and fashion and flesh

Lots of flummery and cleavage. And uplifting bras. I don’t know how Tara Moss could breath. And judging by the photo in the Herald Sun today I don’t know how Paris Hilton’s skirt stayed above her vagina.

She must have magnetic hips. Judging by some of the newspaper stories and photographs she does have magnetic hips. She hasn’t been idle with an Australian Idol.

The Hilton Sisters visit must have cost the Seven Network $100,000. What on earth does a TV network get out of importing a couple of American nonentities known for being party-goers? Bizarre.

November 9, 2003

.©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2003