In a desperate finish involving four horses, the Danny O’Brien-trained ‘Vow And Declare’ ridden by Craig Williams, took an inside run, and put his head down when it counted, to win in a photo finish the Melbourne Cup horse race yesterday. As an ordinary Chimp I feel quite miffed that you don’t race Chimpanzees with equal gusto. (We could do some good lap times through a forest swinging through the branches.)

After recovering from the excitement, and a glass or two of champagne, I looked up past winners of Australia’s oldest and most famous horse race:

• The first race was run in 1861 and was won by ‘Archer’, ridden by John Cutts, in 3 minutes 52 seconds.
• Williams yesterday, riding ‘Vow and Declare’, won in 3 minutes 24.76 seconds.
• Most interestingly ‘Pharlap’, probably your most celebrated racehorse, won in 1930 with a time of 3 minutes 27.75 seconds.

It occurred to my monkey mind that there is not much evidence of “evolution” here.

After all, racing cars have reduced lap times dramatically in a much shorter period. For example, the 1950 Grand Prix run at Silverstone in England was won by Giuseppe Farina in an Alfa Romeo 158 Alfetta at an average speed of 90.96 mph. This year Lewis Hamilton, driving a Mercedes won at an average speed of 138.80 mph, on a circuit with an altered Woodcote corner to slow the cars down.

I can see evidence of “evolution” here. But the racehorses look exactly as they did in 1861. The drivers and riders also look like “standard production human beings”. No “evolution” there either.

Curious thing this evolution! (Maybe it is a sort of hallucination after all?)

Gibber! Gibber!

Chugley

The Apparently-Evolving Chimp