Horses and rowing collide at World Champs

This World Rowing Championships has brought rowing and horses together by celebrating one of the biggest horse racing events in the world, the Australian race, the Melbourne Cup.

Always raced on the first Tuesday in November, the Melbourne Cup brings New Zealand and Australia to a standstill as both countries watch and cheer for their favourite horse. Karapiro, next to the town of Cambridge, is one of the top four horse breeding regions of the world and Cambridge has now linked to the Melbourne Cup with the Cambridge Melbourne Cup day. This year the Cambridge Melbourne Cup took place on the shores of Lake Karapiro.

Phillip Quay is one of the organisers behind the Cambridge Melbourne Cup day and he is proud to be linked to the 2010 World Rowing Championships. Today at the Karapiro regatta course the Cup celebrations included a fashion parade as well as a live link to the Melbourne Cup race.

“Cambridge has bred 14 Melbourne Cup winners,” said Quay, “and we want to put this event on the world stage.” The World Champs was a perfect medium said Quay.

Rowing also has a link to horses through single sculling Olympic Champion, Rob Waddell (NZL). Waddell grew up in this region and now he owns a horse agistment farm – a farm to look after horses for clients. This involves pre-training of horses and looking after horses when they are ‘spelling’, which means resting in between races.

A betting facility at the course had queues of people lining up to place their bet on their favourite Melbourne Cup horse. One of these horses, So You Think, was the hot pick locally, being a Cambridge bred horse. The crowd gathered around the big screen at the regatta course and So You Think pleased the punters by coming in third.

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