Cigarette cards - horses
Cigarette cards also featured popular race horses, including famous winners of the Melbourne Cup and Caulfield Cup. The selection of images below is from a series of cigarette cards which featured winners of the Melbourne Cup from its beginnings in 1861 until 1905, including the famous horse Archer who won the Melbourne Cup twice in two consecutive years 1861 and 1862. For more than a century, Archer was one of only two horses to have won the Melbourne Cup twice.
Watched by a crowd of around 4,000, Archer, a Sydney 'outsider' who had been injured during training a few days earlier, went on to win the innaugural Melbourne Cup in 1861, defeating the local favourite Mormon. In 1862, Archer again won, this time by an amazing eight lengths, with Mormon again running second.
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> View more of the Library's collection of cigarette cards featuring Melbourne Cup winners, 1861-1905This series of cigarette cards features all Melbourne Cup winners between 1861 and 1905, including Archer (1861, 1862), Glencoe (1868), Don Juan (1873), Carbine (1890), Glenloth (1892), Clean Sweep (1900), Acrasia (1904) and Blue Spec (1905).
> View more of the cigarette cards featuring early Melbourne Cup winners, 1861-1905 
The Melbourne Cup has has long been lauded as the 'race that stops a nation', and many of the winners have become part of Australian folklore. While the Cup will continue to evolve it remains the greatest 3200 metre handicap horse race anywhere in the world and, by the nature of the conditions, arguably one of the most challenging to win.
> View another series of cigarette cards featuring scenes of Australian horseracing, 1900s
