Day 87 & 88 - Weekend Edition - A horse and a monkey

This Tuesday is the Melbourne Cup - the crown jewel in the Victorian racing calendar. Far classier than any other race day, it's a day on which the men wear suits and pretend that they can taste the difference between Crownies and VB, and the women get to wear massive hats and 'fascinators' (note:- if you're ever considering DJ-ing for a corporate marquee, I think DJ Fascinator is a brilliant DJ name).

So here's today's tenuous link to the blog's theme - who won the Cup in 1978 (year I was born)?

Through the magic of the interweb, I can tell you that it was a horse called "Arwon". Although his name sounds like something out of LOTR (that's "Lord of the Rings", for you non-nerds), he was actually named by reversing the letters in Nowra, the town where one member of the syndicate that owned him lived. Here were the rejected names on the shortlist:
Gnoleeg
Eebirrew
Ruobrah Sffoc
and, the Gaellic sounding: Siht Gnidaer Er'uoy Eveileb T'nac I

And get this. Arwon was the Melbourne Cup's oldest living winner. Until he wasn't. Yes, Arwon lived to the ripe old age of...33. Until he was euthanised! Poor old Arwon. Sure, his mane was thinning a bit, but he managed to comb it over so that no-one noticed. He kept up with the latest youth trends: piercings, dyeing his coat black so he could be a bit 'emo' and neighing ironically. But oh no. We couldn't have a horse that was over the hill, could we? He starts looking at timeshares and noting how capital gains tax is way too high and BLAM! That's it. And you wonder why horses lie about their age. (If you don't, you should).

In monkey related news, a friend living in the UK brought it to my attention that a chimp that could use sign language has died. He was 42, so at least he got a few more years than Arwon, maybe because he was able to sign to the scientists: "You better keep me around or I'll tell everyone where the grant money was really spent."