footy observations: melbourne cup style

So you should just about have time to read this before you watch the money you bet slip away the Cup this afternoon. That sounds bitter, right? It’s not meant to. I have a real soft spot for Melbourne Cup (Kiki hates it with the fire of a thousand suns, if you’re wondering. Along with glitter nailpolish, it’s one of the only things we disagree on).

Mainly, this is because I approve of events where you can drink on a Tuesday morning without fear of judgment. Sure, you can drink on regular Tuesdays, but there’s always that nagging voice/narky passerby/priest/boss/therapist who comes along and ruins it by suggesting that maybe you should drink your morning orange juice without champagne in it. UM, IT’S MADE OF GRAPES. HOW IS THAT NOT ACCEPTABLE AS A BREAKFAST BEVERAGE? FASCISTS.

I also have fond memories of my slightly-morally-compromised Nanna picking me up early from primary school every Melbourne Cup day so I could come home and eat tiny tiny sandwiches with her and her silver-haired friends, and see first hand whether my horse won. This mattered because Nan would also put $2 bets on for me at the TAB. Any day when you get to miss school AND WIN EIGHT BUCKS is, needless to say, pretty much the greatest day ever for a six year old. That eight bucks could buy you 800 chocolate freckles. Or a primary school slave for about a week. No wonder I love Melbourne Cup day. It’s just a whole inevitable Pavlovian thing, you know?

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that children love gambling.

And of course Melbourne Cup also involves some of my all-time favourite things as an adult. These things include, but are not limited to:

• Drunk girls buying giant bags of Doritos at the servo on Alison Road opposite the racecourse at 6pm. Nothing goes with Doritos like wilted feathers and a bunyan.
• Fascinators in general. They’re played out and ugly, yet people refuse to let them go, which I find delightful in a really mean and peverse way. Think of it as the headwear equivalent of ‘the Emperor has no clothes’.
• The actual news being replaced by endless montages of horses and people in fancy outfits for me to judge as I eat my dinner. YES PLEASE.
• More importantly: footage on the news of some girl from Melby who got blind and vommed in a sulo. Anything that makes my behaviour in general life look better is something I approve of.
• Awkward office Melbourne Cup functions. When I worked in an office, the prospect of having to make small talk with Sheila from accounts over a glass of slightly warm champas in the foyer, while she rocks a printed wrap dress with her regular day-to-daqy office mules and asks me why I don’t have flowers in my hair made me want to die. Now that I don’t I think they are just peachy.
• Did I mention you can drink in the day? At work?

And because the Australian Kangaroos team are still on their quest to be the most awesome sporting team in Aussie history, they’re not just doing Movember, they’re also on the Bigpond website doing a Melbourne Cup Sweeps.

Of COURSE they’re doing a Melbourne Cup sweeps. It’s part of their big plan to Make Sassy Love Them. And yes, boys, the plan is totally working.

I may have squealed a little bit watching the video. In my defence, I’m only human. If you can watch giant footy players jumping in the air to try and pull tiny bits of paper out of a bowl and exclaiming with glee at their horses without squealing a little bit, then you have no soul.

Here’s my pick out of the footy boys’ tips:

Ben Hannant likes Master O’Reilly, because it’s running as number 4, and his kid is turning 4 today. You can’t argue with that logic! It’s the kind of logic that people have used for centuries to make up PINs for their EFTPOS cards and win lotteries. It’s foolproof.

Disclaimer: May not be actual Ben Hannant.

But if you really want a good tip, you’d have to go with Billy Slater right? His pick in the sweeps and his pick to win is Alcopop, and you have to admit bitch knows his ponies. If anyone has the inside word from the land of the jockeys, it has to be Billy. Plus, if you look closely, you can also see that he’s well into growing a sweet sweet moustache for Mobember … and if you can’t trust a man growing a mo for charity, who can you trust?

SEE? Sweet mo indeed.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to bet on Alcopop. IF IT LOSES YOU OWE ME $20 BILLY.