It may be the race that stops two nations, but the Melbourne Cup didn’t capture the imagination of New Zealand punters in 2011.
New Zealand TAB betting on the Melbourne Cup was $NZ7,947,932 – down 9.8 per cent on last year’s record figure of $NZ8.73 million.
The continued economic recession probably didn’t help, but TAB spokesman John Mitchell said the absence of any New Zealand-trained horses for possibly the first time since the 1940s was a bigger factor.
“We are a patriotic bunch and we tend to back our own, and this year there weren’t any,” he told NZ Newswire.
Punters may have also been put off by the high number of overseas runners whose form they may not have been familiar with.
Mitchell didn’t think the recession was an issue as betting on the Rugby World Cup was high and the Cox Plate, in which New Zealand horse Jimmy Choux ran second, was the second-best ever for turnover.
Mitchell said TAB bookies were cheering outsider Red Cadeaux down the straight but he was just nosed out on the line by second favourite Dunaden, who paid $8.20.
AAP TURF
