The Melbourne Cup is always scheduled to be run on the first Tuesday in November and is scheduled to start at 3pm (AEST).
Flemington Racecourse plays host to a big 10 race card on Melbourne Cup day with the feature race being Race 7.
2018 Melbourne Cup Date
The 2018 edition of the Melbourne Cup is scheduled to be run on Tuesday, November 6th 2018. Read more about the 2018 Melbourne Cup here.
2018 Melbourne Cup Start Time
The 2018 Melbourne Cup is scheduled to start at 3pm local time. Given that there is usually a much larger gap between races leading up to the Melbourne Cup it’s rare that the race is delayed. Given the size of the field (24 horses) there can be a slight delay in loading all the horses into the barriers, however the delay should be no greater than a minute or two.
Melbourne Cup International Start Times
Watching the Melbourne Cup from another country? See the times and dates for other timezones below.
| Location | Date | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Melbourne, Australia | Tue, 6 Nov 2018 | 3:00 pm |
| London, United Kingdom | Tue, 6 Nov 2018 | 5:00 am |
| Auckland, New Zealand | Tue, 6 Nov 2018 | 6:00 pm |
| New York, NY, USA | Tue, 6 Nov 2018 | 12:00 am (midnight) |
| Los Angeles, CA, USA | Mon, 5 Nov 2018 | 9:00 pm |
| Paris, France | Tue, 6 Nov 2018 | 6:00 am |
| Cape Town, South Africa | Tue, 6 Nov 2018 | 7:00 am |
| Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | Tue, 6 Nov 2018 | 3:00 am |
| Denpasar, Indonesia | Tue, 6 Nov 2018 | 1:00 pm |
| Tokyo, Japan | Tue, 6 Nov 2018 | 2:00 pm |
| Beijing, China | Tue, 6 Nov 2018 | 1:00 pm |
Melbourne Cup Day Schedule
A full schedule for the 2018 Melbourne Cup won’t be released until the days leading up to Melbourne Cup day. However previous years has seen the first race on Cup day jump at 10:40 am and the last race run at 5:15 pm.
How long is the Melbourne Cup?
Typically a Melbourne Cup will run for about 3 minutes and 20 seconds, however a number of factors can effect this. In 1993, Kingston Rule set the record time for the Melbourne Cup at 3 minutes and 16.3 seconds.
