Fewer starters line up for Cup hospitality

Entertaining budgets have been cut at the Melbourne Cup. Photo / Herald on Sunday

The global financial crisis may be over, but corporate Australia is still feeling bruised.

A relatively modest number of guests will enjoy champagne and canapes in the hospitality marquees at today's Melbourne Cup, compared with two years ago, before the crisis struck.

In the most sought-after enclosure at Melbourne's Flemington racecourse, the Birdcage, the number of elaborately designed marquees has dropped from 53 in 2007 to 34 this year and tents are smaller and budgets have been slashed, the Age newspaper reported.

There is no decrease in interest in the race, with punters on both sides of the Tasman dropping everything at 5pm New Zealand time today. This year's Cup field will include five New Zealand-trained horses, including the country's leading hope, Daffodil.

Millionaires' Row, as the elevated marquees at the front of the Birdcage are known, will be depleted. The rest of the enclosure, which is open only to guests of corporate sponsors and full members of the Victorian Racing Club, features expanses of grass, which will be used as a carpark.