I’m a lover of horseracing. I’m not a lover of attending in person the famed Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival as it’s about almost everything except horseracing. Entirely lacking ownership of a quality racehorse or an acquaintance that could schlepp me into a decent marquee, my preference is to spend quality time with the TV coverage, my online betting account and wine that costs about the same per bottle as you’d pay per glass at the races.
All without the whiff of Portaloo.
Every year brings new revelations. Here are my observations of Derby Day 2018:
Fake tan goals
Huzzah to the female attendees who seem to have finally nailed the art of the fake tan.
From that moment in the 80s that we realised that slathering our skin in baby oil (or at best, SPF4 Reef Oil) and then subjecting it to the potent radiation of an Australian sun unconstrained by an ozone layer, we sought another solution.
Fake tans were a roguish line-up of smelly, streaky potions that loved nothing more than to immediately leach off skin onto light coloured fabrics. With distinctly Anglo-Saxon skin courtesy of ancestors transported to Australia by boat, most of the 80s and 90s were spent applying chemical concoctions in an effort to make my skin slightly less translucent. I cannot conjure up the product name but the smell of it is something embedded in my memory at a molecular level.
After years of observing female racegoers that were only one green hairstyle away from Oompa Loompa, it seems that either technology or fake tan finesse is finally now producing something a little more natural.
Well done gals.
Tiny gloves
My glove-love is immutably dedicated to those made immortal by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffanys. Long, elegant, black gloves with the tiniest hint of shimmer.
I’m still angry at Madonna for the lace glove era.
I remain baffled at the concept of fingerless gloves for their undeniable failure to warm the most obviously vulnerable elements of the hand.
This year, glove puzzlement has gone next level. Tiny gloves. They are essentially just fingers, linked by the merest connecting fabric.
These.
For the uninitiated, these are called Half Palm Gloves and don’t you even be thinking about entering Fashions On The Field unless you are wearing them.
To me, they look like those pesky low cut socks that lack enough fabric to grip an ankle and are always disappearing below sneaker level.
They are also undoubtedly ineffective at keeping skinny wrists warm and simply MUST be an encumbrance in using an iphone.
Elle Macpherson
Elle is our original Aussie supermodel and it still baffles me that she didn’t get a gig in that George Michael film clip. She rocked a red bikini advertising a Tier Two Cola, survived the high cut swimmers era, holds the record for cover appearances on Sports Illustrated and became known as The Body, which of course is every living woman’s secret dream.
Aged 54, she rocked the races, with her trademark awesome hair and an outfit that was a secret nod to every one of us that knows about a mullet.
She refused paparazzi requests to remove her sunglasses which just made me feel better about every single time I’ve insisted on donning my aviators when I was involved in a pic that was destined for social media.
I’ve always maintained that while Elle Macpherson is not too old for long hair, I’m not too old for long hair (despite being misaligned to Ms Macpherson in any other element other than demographic)
#teamElle
Francesca Cumani
Francesca Cumani has serious racing pedigree. Her dad is an Italian thoroughbred racing trainer yet she has a voice resonant of the Best British Boarding Schools. She’s totally how I imagine Enid Blyton would speak.
She’s now a British-Italian horse racing expert who divides her time as a racing commentator between the United Kingdom and Australia. She’s racing royalty, and by my calculations it’s just bad luck and bad timing that she isn’t married to an actual British royal.
With a family apprenticeship that involved mucking out stables (read: a Dad version of slave labour) she’s risen from steaming stable straw to stylish industry insider.
She’s unafraid to parade a pale fabric in the mounting yard, striding confidently alongside snorting, sweating, shedding horseflesh. She’s smart enough to give open toe shoes a swerve, knowing that an errant thoroughbred sidestep could take off a toenail or nuke a good pedicure.
On Derby Day she wore a neck-high top straight out of a Jane Austen novel with more layers than Streets Vienetta. On anyone else it would be 100% crusty spinster librarian.
On ‘Cesca it was pure fabulousness.
Three days till Melbourne Cup Day!