Melbourne Cup revellers may wake up with a sore head this morning — and their photograph plastered across the internet as an example of Australians behaving badly.

As Green Moon wrote himself into the history books yesterday, many punters were busy writing themselves off at Flemington, and the international media was taking note.

More than a dozen images of racegoers falling onto the ground, planking among beer cans and swigging straight from champagne bottles have been held up as an example of Australia's ugly, booze-soaked culture by London tabloid The Daily Mail.

England is a country renowned for its love of a pint, but the Melbourne Cup took boozing to new extremes, according to the world's biggest newspaper website, which claimed Cup guests Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall would have been shocked to witness such behaviour.