The Melbourne Cup is held in Australia; the venue being the Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne. It is the annual thoroughbred horse race and is one of the most popular events in the country. It has been nicknames as 'The race that stops a nation' and is primarily for three-year-olds and above. The entire distance is about 3200 meters. This event is conducted by the Victoria Racing Club and generally takes place in the first Tuesday of November and is seen as being the most prestigious 'two-mile' handicap in the whole world. Previously the distance used to be a little more (3218 meters) but this changed once Australia adopted the metric system and in the year 1972 the distance was set to a round 3200 meters. The record holder till date is Kingston Rule with a clock time of 3 minutes and 16.3 seconds.