Derby Day: Broken heels, lost bets and racing protesters at Flemington

As a sea of punters dressed in black and white walked through the members’ entrance at Flemington on Saturday for Derby Day, one woman lost a heel from her shoe and abandoned it at the gates.

“It’s too early in the day for that!” she laughed.

After all, the intoxicated antics of the crowd can be more entertaining than the horses during the spring racing carnival.

It proved to be the case in the late afternoon when one woman, hovering a half-drunk bottle of Prosecco over a bin, started flogging the remaining Italian sparkling to passers-by so it “wouldn’t go to waste”.

No one took her up on her offer, though not for a lack of trying.

Over in general admission, Kerryn and David Messina were a bit more refined as they gave the Birdcage marquees a run for their money with their set-up.

The pair were perched in a corner on camping chairs in front of a portable table, topped with their own charcuterie board.

“My husband’s Italian so we’ve got the salami, the cheeses, the bread, the wine,” Kerryn said.

It was Kerryn’s first Derby Day, which she loved for the fashion – especially the girls with their “gorgeous frocks”. Asked what his strategy was for punting, David responded: “To win.”

It was an unsuccessful strategy in race three, though the couple did not seem fazed. There is always another race.

Over on the grass trackside, attendees aged in their early to mid-twenties had taken over. A crowd of 73,056 attended on Saturday, according to the Victoria Racing Club.

Beer cans were spilling, pictures were being taken for social media, and the young punters were feeling the effects of the sun.

It was a particularly special day for Queenslanders Marita Ramia and James O’Shea, who had flown down from Toowoomba in honour of O’Shea’s late father, David, a famed race caller known as the “voice of the Darling Downs”.

“My father did a tour to the Melbourne Cup until his passing in 2015,” O’Shea said. “He led over 20 years of tours [to the spring racing carnival]. Ironically, I never got the chance to do it, so now getting that chance it’s pretty special.”

One group of regular attendees during racing season are the animal rights protesters that gather outside. This year, attendees waiting to cross the road to enter the grounds greeted them with grimacing faces.

Seven or so protesters organised by the Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses held signs high above their heads, which included the names of over 100 race horses that had died that year.

A passer shouted out of his car, accusing the group’s director, Elio Celetto, of wearing leather shoes. He yelled back, “They’re plastic!”

Celetto reckoned they had copped more abuse than usual for that time of day, but was still hopeful that track attendance during the carnival would continue its trend of decline.

For the tens of thousands attending on Derby Day, those hopes were falling on deaf ears.

By the late afternoon, attendees ditched their high heels, danced in front of indie pop duo Client Liason with newly developed sunburns.

Their closing song and one of their biggest hits, The Real Thing, garnered a few lacklustre cheers from among the several hundred people enjoying the afternoon sunshine.

As the song reached its final chorus, and Derby Day neared its end, theatrical smoke exploded from the sides of the stage and a few punters staggered to the exit.

Four mates propped up their most inebriated friend as they walked to the Flemington train station, as he professed how dearly he loved each of them.

Unlike those broken shoes, he was not abandoned at the gates.