The annual Melbourne Cup is finally upon us, the 2 mile (3200 metre) handicap turf event held at Flemington, Melbourne, on the Tuesday, 6^th November, 2007 has a $5 Million purse and is Australia's richest horse race which attracts an international field.

Unlike last weekends Breeders Cup Classic held at Monmouth Park, New Jersey, which is North America's richest race and had only 9 starters, the Melbourne Cup has 24 horses entered into this years race and their post positions have now been set. For the first time in the history of the Melbourne Cup, horses from NSW will be excluded from this years race because of quarantine restrictions due to the much talked about equine influenza outbreak.

The race that stops a nation is race 7 of 10 with post time set at 3:00pm local time, that's approximately 11:00PM ET Monday 5th November for North American's wishing to tune into the highly acclaimed and talked about race.

Approximately 120,000 are expected to watch the race track-side, however literally millions of Australian's watch race at their local pub, work place, by what means possible and bet around $140,000,000 annually on the race.

To bet on this year's Melbourne Cup, check out Paddy Power, the UK's second biggest Sportsbook.

Here are the horses entered for this years Melbourne Cup;

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