The man who invented the Melbourne Cup

Sports Bizarre

Frederick Charles Standish left England in 1852 under a false name and fleeing moneylenders. Landing in Melbourne, he was forced to live on the goldfields and run a sly grog business.

Yet, just six years later, he would be the colony's Chief Commissioner of police, be a pallbearer at Robert O’Hara Burke's funeral, invent the Melbourne Cup, become a key player in the formation of the VRC and lead, very unsuccessfully, the hunt for Ned Kelly.

Titus O'Reily and Mick Molloy examine the life of one of Australia's strangest characters, a man who paused the hunt for Ned Kelly while the weights of the Melbourne Cup were declared.

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