02:32

Reporter Melissa Davey has an update from the city, where not all Melbournians are enjoying a day off work and not everyone is caught up in the festivities

Being one of a handful of people in the Melbourne CBD today, I decided to speak to some people who also are not celebrating the Cup, be it a deliberate choice or because they are working.

Jarrad Robb is one of those who will not place a bet or don a suit. He views horse racing as needlessly cruel. “While the way we farm animals goes from ‘respectful and kind’ to ‘hideous’, at least there is a practical reason to farm animals,” he tells me. “Sitting on them and trying trying to make them run fast is hugely removed from the relationship we may have had with horses in the distant past.”

Gambling was another aspect Robb says he could not support.

“It’s like the stock market except the market is even more ludicrously fake,” he says. “I honestly think gambling is kinda always bad. Melbourne cup makes gambling some kind of important cultural institution which is pretty repugnant.”

Meanwhile Trayce Forbes, who works in IT, says: “To be honest, I’m working today because a Tuesday seems a silly day for a holiday, and I get overtime pay for working, so I asked for Monday off on leave instead, and worked today instead. It’s been fairly quiet.”

And Melissa Plant says she stopped paying attention to the Cup when she began thinking about what happened behind the TV screen. The death of two horses in last year’s race in particular unsettled her. “An animal forced to run getting shot in the head so we can have free drinks and a punt?” she says. “Adding to the fact that gambling culture is such a problem in this country.”

“I ran out of ways to feel okay about it. It had been coming on gradually for a few years and then another horse fell and I just couldn’t anymore. People don’t participate to be cruel, so I don’t know how to challenge it. But it’s over for me.”