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Melbourne Cup Brings Mixed Emotions

Categories: Oceania, Australia, Citizen Media, Sport, Women & Gender

melbourne cup [1]Melbourne Cup day, 5 November 2013, has been a day of mixed emotions. Favourite Fiorente’s win has been a triumph for trainer Gai Waterhouse. She became the first woman to train the winner of the race that stops a nation [2]. It certainly stops its home city where there is a public holiday that brings a crowd of up to 110,000 people.

However, the glory was dimmed by the death of one of the runners, Verema, which had to be put down afterwards. It was owned by the Aga Khan IV, one of the sport of kings’ richest patrons.

Twitter was a mixture of…

Elation:

Fabe Keily, is CEO of Women In Management Australia ‘What Working Women Want’.

Some humour:

Followed by sadness with the news of the “euthanized” horse.

Plus a fair bit of anger:

With some black humour:

In a sign of the online times, the Wikipedia entry [18] for the Aga Khan was updated within two hours of the race:

Thoroughbred horse racing

…On 5 November 2013, one of Aga Khan's horses – Verema [19] – fractured it's right fore cannon[90] [20] and was put down at the Melbourne Cup [2], Australia [21].