Geelong Cup

The Geelong Cup is the highlight of the annual Geelong Spring Festival, part of the Melbourne Spring Festival of Racing. Whilst the race may lack the status of some of the other feature races run during the meetings that comprise the Spring Carnival, it is nevertheless the only major race to be held at a country racetrack during the Carnival.

The Geelong Cup is a group 3 handicap race run over a distance of 2400 metres (1,4 miles) at Geelong Racecourse. Both the race as well as the Geelong Carnival of Racing, takes place in the week between the running of the Caulfield Cup and the Cox Plate. The race is open to 4 year old and above thoroughbred racehorses, with both colts and fillies eligible to participate.

The first Geelong Cup was run in 1872 at the Geelong Racecourse. The race is an important cultural and social event in the town of Geelong, whose inhabitants enjoy a public holiday on the day of the race. Over the years, the Geelong Cup has evolved into an important trial event for the Melbourne Cup, and prize money has grown steadily to top the AS$200,000 mark.

Geelong Cup Betting

Due to the fact that the Geelong Cup is a lower rated race than many of the other races run during the course of the Spring Racing Carnival, it tends to slip beneath the radar of the major UK bookmakers. This does not mean that odds are not available, but rather that antepost betting markets are rare, unless use is made of Australian bookmakers.

Odds comparison services will offer the highest prices on the Geelong Cup. A quality odds comparison service will also offer links to additional Geelong Cup betting markets, and will profile antepost prices as soon as they are made available. Keep in mind that the race will often be presented as the 6:25 race on the Geelong Carnival card, rather than under its title.

Recent trends in thoroughbred racing indicate that an increasing number of British and Irish thoroughbreds travel to Australia for the Spring Racing Carnival. It was an Irish raider, Bauer, who won the race in 2008, that highlighted the fact that the biggest challenge in Geelong Cup betting involves comparing and evaluating the abilities of a field that is typically drawn from a minimum of three countries.