It will be the first time in 35 years that horse racing trainer Gai Waterhouse hasn’t been at Flemington Racecourse to watch the Melbourne Cup. No cameras, carnations or characters for her this year. For the once-budding actor, who turned down an offer from the National Institute of Dramatic Art, the racetrack has long been her preferred stage. Unsurprisingly, she's not happy the theatre is closed to spectators.

“They’ve gone mad! They have done a cruel thing,” she says of the COVID-19 restrictions and quarantine rules that will keep her in Sydney on November 3. “They will cause a massive recession.”