DON’T GO TRYING TO WATER DOWN OUR MELBOURNE CUP

THE Melbourne Cup Carnival has gone all mindful on us. Apparently, this year’s racing season is all about wellness, sobriety and social conscience.

The 1 Oliver St marquee has a “hydration station” for the “sober and sober-curious” to make their own non-alcoholic cocktails. In the Lexus tent there’s a low-alcohol and noalcohol “slow bar” while over at the Elle marquee there are “curated mocktails” rather than champagne and canapes.

Racing’s new era sees a growing number of venues around town saying “nup to the cup”. Megan Gale, Taylor Swift and some actress I’ve never heard of from a show I’ve never watched are no longer coming to town. And protesters are gearing up to make an impact. A lot of it is due to the ABC expose about the racing industry which shows we must treat horses who are no longer racing in a more humane way.

But all the people calling for the carnival to be boycotted don’t realise that for many of us, the Melbourne Cup isn’t about horses at all.

It’s more about dressing up, placing some bets, hanging with mates, getting tanked and ignoring the voice in your head that says: “What do I have to do to get on the news?”

Here’s what makes the Melbourne Cup the race that stops the nation.

DRESSING UP: Encouraged by experts advising racegoers to “step out of your comfort zone”, the fashion-forward lady will don a culottecamisole combo with perspex peekaboo panels teamed with a kitten ear hatinator. She will think it’s stylish but will look like a giant licorice all-sort with an alarming amount of side boob on display. She’ll be much-photographed, but not for the right reasons. Frustrated by the lack of phone reception stopping her from posting on Instagram, she’ll give up and will be found humping a wheelie bin by 5pm. At the Cup, fashion matters. This year even the protesters have issued a “smart casual” dress code for their event just outside the gates. GETTING TANKED: Let’s face it, this is a Cup tradition and all the low-alc and no-alc marquees aren’t going to change it. But there’s a right way to do it: getting quietly sozzled on premium champagne and pouring yourself into a taxi at day’s end. Wrong way: S--tfaced by 11am, simulated sex with a bronze statue on the side of the track at noon, nap on the grass at 3pm (pictured) and walking home on the railway tracks,

shoes in hand, at 9pm. Don’t forget, what happens at the track never stays on the track. The bigger idiot you are, the more likely it will end up on YouTube and haunt you for years.

THE BIRDCAGE: Aah, thank God for the Birdcage, the home of the desperate, decorative and debauched. There’s nothing conscious or mindful going on in there. This year’s celebrity enclosure includes a 23-metre entrance with full red-caret treatment and a 15-metre bar with gold wings and a grand piano. Think Oscars, think Brownlows, think Geoffrey Edelsten proposing to Gabi Grecko on one knee in that yellow suit that made him look like a human highlighter.

In the ’cage anything goes, including reality stars with freshly injected Botox and hired designer outfits looking for a second bite at the fame cherry. They’ll air kiss you, call you dahling (because they can’t remember your name) and then spend the whole time looking over your shoulder for the arrival of the 2020 Big Brother casting director. The 2019 Birdcage masterstroke is a secret bar which will end up full of all the radio hosts whose shows have just been cancelled, allowing them to avoid the radio hosts who have just been hired to replace them. IMPORTED STARS:

Supplementing the local talent offerings of Instagram influencers and Neighbours stars are the imported foreign stars. Over the years it’s been a battle to find A-list stars big enough to get maximum coverage but not too A-list to turn up on time, look interested or actually want to be there. Yes, Naomi Campbell, Scott Disick and Nicole Kidman, I mean you.

Paris Hilton and Rob Mills were kind enough to engineer a 24-hour fling in 2003, unlike Paris Jackson who licked the glass in the members’ area in 2017.

The Melbourne Cup is part of our Aussie way of life. Yes, all horses must be looked after humanely, especially when they’re no longer racing. But I also hope a horse will look after you this week by being first past the post at 100-1. That’s my idea of wellness.