It’s around 6am Tuesday 5th November, 2013 and I’m sitting here in Istanbul Airport waiting for a connection to Antalya and this week’s Turkish Airlines Open.

It is also the first Tuesday in November and that means it’s Melbourne Cup day when one horse stops an entire nation.

On the occasion of the 153rd running of the Melbourne Cup it was Irish horse Florente storming to victory at Flemington and with jockey Damien Oliver savouring his third Melbourne Cup success.

It was also a first Melbourne Cup win for trainer Gay Waterhouse, and daughter of legendary trainer Tommy Waterhouse.

However once again it still seems strange that it will 100 years in 2015 when Australians ventured to Turkey for a completely different reason, and the tragic aspect of that is there was just so many of those young Australians who never got to see their homeland again.

And that leads me again to the bizarre situation upon arrival into Turkey where Australians, Canadians and British passport holders, and every nation except New Zealand who fought on the Gallipoli Peninsula, have to pay Euro 45 for an entry visa.

Watching the running of the 153rd Melbourne Cup in a Instanbul Aiport coffee shop.