Melbourne Cup Day Activities

Melbourne Cup Day Activities

{Please note I have updated this page to include information for 2012 and to replace links to websites that are no longer in existence.}

My home town Melbourne has a very vibrant horse racing scene. The Spring Carnival is on at the moment, with the big days being incorporated in the Melbourne Cup Carnival. The Melbourne Cup Carnival is made up of 4 key race days at Flemington Racecourse:

  • Saturday 3rd November 2012 is Derby Day
  • Tuesday 6th November 2012 is Melbourne Cup Day
  • Thursday 8th November 2012 is Oaks Day
  • Saturday 10th November 2012 is Emirates Stakes Day

Melbourne Cup day is a public holiday in Victoria and it is referred to as “The race that stops a nation” (this phrase has been trademarked now!). So getting in the swing of all things races, I have collated some Melbourne Cup Day activities you can do with the kids. Most of them would be suitable to celebrate other horse racing events around Australia and the world!

Winners of the Cup


I have put together an excel spreadsheet of all the previous winners of the Melbourne Cup. You can download the spreadsheet here – Melbourne Cup Winners.

Depending on the age of the child you can do a whole host of activities like:

  • Identification and Sorting – have them work out which jockey has riden the most winners, which trainer has trained the most horses, which horse has won the race the most times.
  • Make a crossword – use this free crossword puzzle maker to make a Melbourne Cup activity for the kids or have them create one themselves. They can write simple comprehension questions like who won the cup in 1998 or harder questions like the ones above, eg which jockey has riden the most winners.
  • Make a word search – using the info from the spreadsheet, create a word find using this word find makerfor younger kids or for older kids you could have them create the word finds themselves.

Phar Lap Club

melbourne cup activities
The Phar Lap CLub is a free club for children under 12. It is run by the Victoria Racing Club. To access the club you do need to join up which as I noted is free. I joined my daughter up a few weeks ago and then we received the above bag in the mail, which contained:
Melbourne Cup Activities


The Phar Lap CLub online has information about the Melbourne Cup and racing in general. There are also activities for the kids, like printables to colour in and online you can create a horse and race it.

Horse Racing Colouring Pages

Hellokids.com has a range of colouring pages for horse racing. You can also choose to colour in online or print them out and then colour them in.

Horse Toilet Paper Roll Craft

DLTK has a free template you can print to make a horse from a toilet roll. Simple and only needs toilet paper roll, a printer, something to colour with, scissors, glue and of course paper.

Create your own Cup Day Hat

Fun Play For Kids has a very fancy cardboard hat you can make. This one would be suitable for older children.

Do you get into the Spring Racing Carnival?