Oct 25, 2022
Dr David Lemon AM, VRC Historian
The Little Boys Who Won The Melbourne Cup.....*At Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club

Myths rapidly gather around our cultural rituals. The spring racing carnival approaches. In my career immersed in the social and political history of Australian racing, I have with some regret debunked a number of favourite stories around the Melbourne Cup. Archer, winner of the first two Cups in 1861 and 1862 did not walk here from New South Wales, on either occasion. Peter St Albans the jockey who won in 1876 was not a 14 year-old Aboriginal waif (he was an 11 year old with Irish parents). Jockeys Kavanagh who won in 1865 and Cavanagh who won in 1871 turn out to be one and the same small boy. In this talk I will do some more myth busting about the twenty or more little boy jockeys who won the Cup in its first forty years. Having recently published a first historical novel, I also ask what responsibility novelists should carry in fictionalising the past. 

Dr Andrew Lemon AM is a Fellow and former President of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria. He is best known for his three volume The History of Australian Thoroughbred Racing, is the VRC's consultant historian and is a regular participant on the annual Melbourne Cup Tour. He has also published widely as a professional historian on local and school history, biography and maritime history, winning several national literary and history awards.  His latest book, The Pebbled Beach at Pentecost—a Novel , is a departure into historical fiction based securely on a true colonial story. 

 

M.C. David Rush