Morley Melbourne Cup Memories

Well today Groover’s as some of you may know, was Melbourne Cup Day here in Australia!

And for you international kids it’s fondly called The Race that Stops a Nation and in Melbourne, Victoria they even get to have a public holiday, lucky things! Mind you I read over the weekend on Twitter that it’s Qantas that stops a Nation not The Melbourne Cup! LOL

As a kid I can remember at both Primary School and High School you would hear someone with a small radio that they had smuggled into school and parade would be late that day due to the running of the cup!

Even for people like me that don’t gamble much at all, would have a “flutter” on the race ☺ eg. today I spent $5 (and that was a big bet for me!)

I can also remember when Jake was much younger and would go and stay with his Dad every second weekend and would come home and love explaining to me how “Best Bets” book would work as his Dad was really into Horse Racing! I kept saying Noooooooooooooo Jake horse racing bets are for old men at the TAB!!!

Now me being me, well I just happen to have a Morley Melbourne Cup story up my sleeve! Can you even believe it.....

About 15 years ago I went on my second cruise. Now on this cruise I met some very funny and lovely guys, as you do, who sat with us a dinner every night! We had a ball and towards the end of the cruise a few Ansett (an Australian Airline that has since disappeared from our sky ☹) staff boarded our ship for the last couple of nights, to organise our flights home. And two of these poor girls were put at our dinner table!

Now we all got along famously and had such an amazing time!

After we returned back from our cruise, my new friends were so incredibly generous because you see they all put in and bought a ticket to fly me to Melbourne for the Melbourne Cup. Elaine came along too, but had to pay for herself... Poor kid!

And my new Ansett friend even surprised us by upgrading our fare to Business Class. When we boarded the plane guess who we were sitting behind? Nooooooooooo not Buble! Peter Brock and his wife! Now Peter Brock, who has since passed away from a tragic racing accident was a famous Australian Racing Car driver.

Now no disrespect to Mr Brock, but I am not into cars AT ALL! So I am sorry that I don't have any great car racing stories that I know of him. Sorry Brock Fans!

But he seemed like a lovely man and my friend Elaine back then owned a car called a Brock Commodore! She was soooo excited to be sitting behind him and I am sure it wasn’t half obvious as at one stage we would be all loud and talking and next mouthing to each other and pointing! Yep def not obvious AT ALL hehehe.

And you know we never did get his autograph! Should have been brave but we were shy! We WERE LOL

So back to The Melbourne Cup! I can remember being at the race and we were under a huge grandstand in a function room and I said to the guys, this is crazy I could be anywhere! I need to see some horses and I need to see some grass so that I know that I really am at the Melbourne Cup! So off we trundled...

I did get to see some horse’s andddddddd we made our way through all the “strange, weird and wonderful people” sitting on the grass just before the track!

And when it came time to put a bet on, me being the amazing and wonderful gambler that I am, was standing in the queue to place my bet and had to ask the girl in front of me for her race guide and picked my horse due to the colours the jockey was wearing! Because I’m a girl + a Morley and that’s just how you do it! :)

Of course I didn’t win... But you know what I had a ball!

As I’ve mentioned before I have def met some people in some interesting ways and have had some amazing adventures ☺ I'm a very Lucky Morley!

And today at work we went out to lunch to celebrate Melbourne Cup this year and I had the best day! I had a lovely Ploughman's Lunch, Alan ate my Gherkin and I was left with the onion balls... hehehe

I even got 2nd place in the Melbourne Cup Sweeps at work :) andddddd brought back some balloons to tie at my desk! Because let's face it: All the hip and happening kids are doing this you know.....

And you know what? I’m glad that I've been to the real life Melbourne Cup, because it’s one thing that I can cross off my Morley Bucket List!

Giddy-up Groover’s

Me xxx