When I told my friend Sooze I'd visit her home town, she suggested we go to the Melbourne Cup and I readily agreed. At that point, I had no idea of the style we'd be going in - she had managed to swing us corporate tickets in the Winners' Enclosure.

Early one fine Tuesday morning, donning hats, high heels and posh dresses, we headed for the Yarra river and set sail with a host of important and smart looking people (why did they let us on I wonder?!). The weather was fantastic; despite the rain over the previous days, there was barely a cloud in the sky. As I started on my first of many glasses of champagne, floated down the river and tucked into little baby croissants and muffins, I thought “this is the life…”

Feeling like VIPs, we docked at Flemington and crossed the race track away from 'the common people' to our air conditioned tent near the finishing post. The champagne continued to flow, and we had the most delicious food at group tables - little canapés, then later lunch and desserts. We even had little presents to open, each containing a brand new pair of bingos! Flemington is famous for its roses, and certainly didn't disappoint - they were beautiful.

But on to more important matters...The Melbourne Cup is Australia's major annual thoroughbred horse race. It takes place on a day of ten races (this year, the Emirates Melbourne Cup), and the actual Cup is race number seven... so there were plenty of races before hand to get us in the mood. The tension was particularly high this year, as a lot of horses weren't able to compete because of restrictions due to horse flu.

We were given race books to swat up on those that had been taking their cold and flu tablets and to study the odds. There were several betting stands near us - so naturally, we got into the spirit early on. We poured over the likes of Maybe Better, Master O'Reilley, Just Curious and Simplest. I of course used serious tactics to decide which horses to go for in each competition - Blue Monday, because it is a song by New Order, Secret Daughter, because it sounds like a book I read recently... that sort of thing. Fail safe I thought. Not so! I did win 25 bucks on race four, but of course I got cocky and promptly spent it (and more).

By the time the actual Melbourne Cup rolled round, we were, ahem, several champagnes along and very much into the swing of the whole event (we had even picked up a couple of swanky gents to cruise around the race course with). We moved from the seats in our private grandstand (wooo!) to stand on the grass and watch the action close up. My friend and I had placed so many different bets on different horses we figured one of us had to at least win something!

Suddenly, the 'race that stops the nation' kicked off and the crowd on both sides of the course went wild, everyone screaming and waving as the horses ran past us and around the track. As they neared us a second time, it was neck and neck and it looked like I was going to get lucky with Purple Rain, until he was pipped at the post by Efficient. Damn. Guess he lived up to his name.

I looked at Sooze and she was laughing. "I didn't think it was any of our horses?", I queried. "It was my mystery bet!", she said with glee. So another winner for Sooze... We decided to cross and see what was happening on the other side of the tracks. It was chaos! By this stage in the afternoon, many people were looking sunburned, drunk, having arguments, missing bits of their outfits - hats, shoes, dresses... never mind the horses, it was fantastic for people watching. We saw another race...and Sooze's horse Snort (great name!) won. She went to claim, only to find she had misplaced the winning ticket. Damn!

So it was all go at the races... by the end of the last race, we'd been going for some time. The horses think they have it tough running for three and a half minutes, but we'd been drinking for ten hours! That didn't stop us taking advantage of further beverages on the return boat trip back into the city though…