The Melbourne Cup

 The first Tuesday in November is always a holiday in Australia.  It's the day the horses run for the Melbourne Cup.  Twenty-four horses run for two miles.  It's a short  three and a half minute run over the grass of Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne.  It pays about $1 million per minute for the winner.

It's a big day for the race horses and an even bigger day for the clothes horses. Both women and men go crazy with fashion.  Crazy over-the-top fashion.  Outlandish headgear is required for women.  Remember the earlier post about the "fascinators"?   Well the fascinators are out in full force on Melbourne Cup day.  Flamboyant hats too.  And every conceivable style of man's suit and woman's dress.  It's a mixture of royal wedding and Halloween costume party.

Australians (and New Zealanders) across the world celebrate the Melbourne cup just as if they were at home.  Suzhou has a fair number of Australian and New Zealand expats, so there had to be a party somewhere.  Several of them got together and organized a charity event around the race at the local Renaissance Hotel.  (Not surprising - the manager there is from down under.)  Tuesday, November 1 was race day. 

 Post time for the race was shortly after Noon, Suzhou time.  The admission ticket got you hors d'oeuvres,  champagne, and lunch buffet. Sweepstakes tickets were sold to insure that everyone had some type of financial interest in the race itself.  Raffle tickets were sold for door prizes.  At the end of the day, they raised a nice chunk of change for the local orphanage. 

Hopefully the photos give you a taste of the high fashion on display for race day

In parting, here's some statistics for you.  The country of Australia has a population of just under 23 million people living in an area of roughly 3,000,000 square miles.  The municipal of Shanghai has a population just over 23 million people living in an area of 2400 square miles, more or less.