1977 Melbourne Cup

The 1977 Melbourne Cup was a handicap horse race which took place on Tuesday, 1 November 1977 over 3200m, at Flemington Racecourse.

Background
The race was won by the New Zealand bred gelding Gold and Black, trained by Bart Cummings and ridden by John Duggan. The runner up was Reckless trained by Tommy Woodcock, and third place went to Hyperno trained by Geoff Murphy. The winning margin was a length with a further two and a half lengths to third place.

Bart bought the horse in New Zealand for $4,000 for Jack and Mary Harris from Adelaide and brought in Hugh and Gloria Gage from Sydney as partners. Gold and Black was sired by In The Purple (France) and his dam was Gem (by Talismano). Gold and Black had won the 1976 Mackinnon Stakes and placed second to Van der Hum in the 1976 Melbourne Cup. In 1977 he was second to Reckless in the Sydney Cup and second in the Mackinnon Stakes behind Sir Silver Lad.

This win gave Bart Cummings his sixth Melbourne Cup win. Bart went on to record twelve Melbourne Cup training victories.

It was third time lucky for jockey John Duggan who had been runner up in the 1975 and 1976 Cups on Holiday Waggon and Gold and Black respectively.

Field
The following are the placegetters in the 1977 Melbourne Cup.