Spring Racing Carnival.

So it's the final day of Melbourne's Spring Racing Carnival. 'Oaks Day', it's called, and it's a day dedicated to 'ladies' sporting short skirts and elaborate hats. A Google search of 'Oaks Day' delivers a universe of gambling sites, however. This is not a revelation. It's the black heart of it all.

Tuesday was a holiday for Melburnians. Literally. They are the only people in Australia granted a public holiday for a horse race. Yesterday's papers were adorned with color photos of the the winning horse, jockey, and trainer across front pages. Inside, shots of female racegoers in fancy frocks and hats were deemed worthy of great gobs of newsprint. The winning horse, a long-shot named Shocking, won some 'punters' big bucks but the biggest winners by another form of long shot were Melbourne's mob of legal bookies.

And I think it's all horseshit.

Yeah, I know nobody likes a killjoy. But holidays dedicated to gambling fail to capture my imagination. This is the second year Aradhna and I have been Melbourne residents during this gambler's bacchanalia. I was mercifully in Fiji last year, but Aradhna attended the Melbourne Cup with a work colleague and had fun. I take no moral high ground regarding people's enjoyment of a week-long celebration of horse racing. To each his/her own. All that interests me is comparing media coverage of the horses and their coterie of handlers, trainers, owners and jockeys with the media's glamorization of all-things-gambling.

It explains a lot about Aussie culture.

A great reward of living abroad is exposure to local traditions and public spectacles. Civic celebrations are best, as they involve no invitation or membership. Melbourne is a city that likes to let its gel-coated hair down with massive fireworks over the Yarra on New Year’s Eve, week-long AFL Grand Final festivities, a taxpayer-subsidised Formula One Grand Prix and more. The one event that pulls everyone in, however, is the Spring Racing Carnival. It's known as "The race that stops a nation."

How pervasive is Spring Racing Carnival? On Monday a morning radio show kicked off with a group whinge about being at work, as most employed Melburnians help themselves to a 4-day weekend. I was working in Sydney during my first Melbourne Cup. It wasn't a paid holiday but could have been, as everyone's minds were on the race and liquid lunches dominated.

As I write this in a CBD cafe a parade is taking place a block south along Swanston & Elizabeth streets. Horses, scouts, jockeys, trainers and assorted stragglers holding flags are marching past crowds massed behind police barricades. Very civilized.

The scene in and around Flinders Street Station on Saturday afternoon, however, was like dress-up day at the DMV. Vivid and profane were the word balloons that spawned from the parade of stiletto-propped dirigibles that greeted us as we walked along the promenade in Southbank. We’d just watched Up at a theatre within Crown Casino’s fortress of dark walkways, designer shops and adjacent gambling dens and had made a bee line for the first door. Mixed with standard late Saturday afternoon strollers but not blending, the elegantly adorned but ragamuffin horse race attendees included clusters of flesh-oozing young women, couples of men and women and never-more-than-two older women strutting withered flesh, blown-out bellies and tired eyes. No one was misbehaving, no one appeared drunk, but it was obvious they’d all been drinking and were destined to do a lot more before peeling off their dapper duds.

Guess I can be thankful for not having to witness that ...