Diana a winner in The Cup’s style stakes
Princess Diana’s niece Kitty Spencer is a guest at this year’s Melbourne Cup, 30 years after Charles and Diana made a royal appearance.
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Despite her fondness for equine events, enticing Queen Elizabeth from Ascot to Flemington for the Melbourne Cup has eluded organisers, although in 1997 she did enter her stayer Arabian Nights.
Perhaps a little like the tenuous royal connections of this year’s Cup celebrity Kitty Spencer, the Queen’s horse ranked with also-rans, coming sixth behind Might And Power.
Spencer’s royal connection is through her aunt, the late Princess Diana, who coincidentally added royal glamour to the event 30 years ago, wearing an understated black and white Bruce Oldfield-designed suit, and matching broadbrimmed hat by Frederick Fox. Diana and husband Prince Charles were at Flemington during their 1985 Australian tour when What A Nuisance won the first $1 million Melbourne Cup.
While Diana won attention for stylish seamed stockings with a bow motif near her shoe, Australian celebrity Leanne Edelsten, then wife of entrepreneurial medico Geoffrey, stood out in a low-cut white, fringed “me Tarzan, you Jane” ensemble, tightly cinched at the waist and extending a fraction below her crotch.
The first British royal to attend a Melbourne Cup was the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Alfred, second son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The Duke, a naval captain, visited Australia in 1867-68 during a world tour aboard HMS Galatea. Despite injuries from a shot in the back by deranged Irishman Henry James O’Farrell at a Sydney Sailors’ Home picnic in March, 1868, the Duke returned for an informal visit in 1869.
On a third visit, he was in Melbourne for the 1870 Cup won by Nimblefoot, as foreseen in a dream by owner, Ballarat publican Walter Craig, who died before the race.
Duke of Gloucester Prince Henry, younger brother of Edward VIII, was the next royal at a Melbourne Cup during his 1934 tour for Victorian centenary celebrations. Although he had a heavy cold, he braved showers to mingle with crowds and watched the 1932 winner Peter Pan street the field for a second Cup. The Duke considered becoming Australian governor-general in 1938, a role offered to his younger brother George. But George died in a military air crash in 1942 and in November 1943 Labor prime minister John Curtin announced Gloucester’s appointment, believing it would improve the likelihood that Britain would continue to defend Australia and affirm Australia had not become a US dependency. The Gloucesters arrived in Australia in January, 1945, and were at Flemington to present the 1946 Cup to Ted Hush, trainer and part owner of winning horse Russia, bred at Trangie, NSW by fellow owner Gordon Leeds.
Hopes that Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip would attend the 1952 Cup were dashed by her father’s sudden death.
Danish Prince Frederik, then courting Tasmanian-born Mary Donaldson, was a guest at the 2002 Cup. Under the name Jensen, they holidayed in the Kimberley wilderness before travelling to Sydney where Mary was bridesmaid for a friend. Sharing a common interest in horses and sport, they then travelled to Melbourne where Irish outsider Media Puzzle triumphed. Mary wore dark glasses, a black hat and lacy taupe dress.
Royal granddaughter and equestrian Zara Phillips donned a striking feather headdress designed by Philip Treacy above a shiny royal blue frock and towering heels for the 2009 Cup, won by Shocking. Her uncle Charles returned to Flemington in 2012 with second wife Camilla, who wore a wide-brimmed cream hat, also by Treacy, with an off-white dress designed by Oldfield. Camilla presented the Cup to Nick Williams, whose family owned Irish winner Green Moon.
Tomorrow’s Cup guest is the eldest of Earl Charles Spencer’s three daughters with first wife, former model Victoria Lockwood. Spencer, Princess Diana’s brother, and Lockwood married in 1989.
Six months after Kitty’s birth, in 1990, her father began an affair. Her mother had twins Amelia and Eliza in 1992, and son Louis in 1994. Then living in South Africa, Lockwood suffered heroin and alcohol addictions and an eating disorder when her marriage collapsed in 1997, the year Diana died in a car crash.
“Obviously I’m aware of the facts but I just don’t remember,” Spencer says of the family turmoil. “My mother educated us about addiction and self-worth. We’ve never really wanted to rebel because she’s always been so honest.”
Originally published as Diana a winner in The Cup’s style stakes
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