1985 Melbourne Cup
The 1985 Melbourne Cup was a two-mile handicap horse race which took place on Tuesday, 5 November 1985. The race, run over, at Flemington Racecourse.
The 1985 Melbourne Cup was won by What A Nuisance a horse who had just recovered from a damaged suspensory ligament. This running of the race was notably for many reasons as it was the first horse race in Australia to have a prize pool of $AU1,000,000 and it was also the first time the Melbourne Cup was sponsored as it was sponsored by Foster's. Legendary commentator Bruce McAvaney called his first Melbourne Cup for Network 10, he would go on to call three more.
Field
This is a list of horses which ran in the 1985 Melbourne Cup.| Place | Horse | Trainer | Jockey |
| 1st | What A Nuisance | John F. Meagher | Pat Hyland |
| 2nd | Koiro Corrie May | Dave O'Sullivan | Lance O'Sullivan |
| 3rd | Tripsacum | J P Gaffney | Robert Hefferman |
| 4th | Fil De Roi | I A MacDonald | Ron Quinton |
| 5th | Butternut | Doug Baertschigar | M Riley |
| 6th | Our Boyfriend | Sir Mark Todd | Mark Barnsley |
| 7th | Imaprince | B Preston | Brent Thomson |
| 8th | Tristarc | R S McDonald | W Trealor |
| 9th | Black Knight | George Hanlon | Peter Cook |
| 10th | Our Sophia | George Hanlon | Harry White |
| 11th | Kiwi | Snow Lupton | Noel Harris |
| 12th | Dusky Legend | S A Mackinnon | P Alderman |
| 13th | Duanette's Girl | J A Gibbs | David Peake |
| 14th | Mapperley Heights | Colin Hayes | Darren Gauci |
| 15th | Silver Award | R W Guy | Mick Dittman |
| 16th | Sir Zephyr | B J Smith | John Duggan |
| 17th | Hayai | J Lee | John Letts |
| 18th | Late Show | Brian Mayfield-Smith | Jim Cassidy |
| 19th | Lacka Reason | M K Bull | Gary Willetts |
| 20th | Under Oath | Colin Hayes | Michael Clarke |
| 21st | Spritely Native | M G Lees | W Harris |
| 22nd | Rising Prince | Deidre Stein | K Langby |
| 23rd | Foxseal | Rick Hore-Lacy | P D Johnson |