Grab the paper from the front porch, rip the plastic off and throw it to the cat, unroll the newspaper, read the headline: Melbourne Cup special (news insert inside).

It’s time, once again, for the Bogan Cup: the piss-up that stops a nation.

My hatred of the world of horse racing has its roots in an early TV job I held where I was required to go to the suburban races in Brisbane twice a week. 98% of these race meets were populated only by sad old men who were surgically joined by one hand to a grubby form guide and by the other to a pot of draught beer. I once went to the men’s toilet and watched one smelly old bastard take a piss at the urinal with one hand up against the wall supporting him and the other holding the form guide close to his squinty eyes. There was no attention paid to the business being done with his unrestrained wrinkly third leg depositing a trickly stream of urine onto his shoes.

Three or four times a year every bogan in town would descend upon the race track in their best suit or dress (free of vomit until at least 2:30pm) feeling like they were truly part of the sport of kings. The old men were still there, lurking up the back looking dirty about the intrusion into their world.

At one of the race meets one of the horses fell down and died halfway down the home straight. Heart attack or something. A car backed a trailer up to the horse and there was an attempt to winch him off the track but his legs were getting in the way. So the legs were broken in half and the winching continued.

Respect for majestic animals: my arse.

Genuine engagement in sporting outcomes: my arse.

Opportunity to have a day off work, get slaughtered, throw up, burn a lazy $100, try to pick up, and wait two hours for a packed train back to zone three: spot on.