Murrumbeena

Murrumbeena, a solidly residential suburb on the south-west fringes of the inner municipal area of Glen Eira, is just a good working gallop from one of the sporting icons of Melbourne, Caulfield Racecourse. These days, however, the good Glen Eira burghers claim the track as one of the cultural centres of the city through its attendant Australian Racing Museum whose collection of trophies, famous silks, photographs and memorabilia trace and honour Australia's rich racing heritage. Glen Eira also embraces one of Australia's most concentrated populations of Jews who have funded and designed the Jewish Holocaust Museum and Research Centre. The centre has been set up both as a memorial to the six million Jews slaughtered by the Nazis and as a powerful symbol to combat racism and preserve the Australian tradition for tolerance. The name Caulfield is synonymous with horse-racing in Australia. Owners, trainers and jockeys have been pursuing the prestigious Caulfield Cup since the race was first run over the classic mile and a half (2400m) in 1879 and the names of some of Australasia's greatest gallopers is engraved on the silverware. Traditionally decided on a track located in a long-established southern suburb of the same name on the third Saturday in October, the Caulfield Cup is regarded as a vital lead-up race to horses which line up for Australia's greatest horse race, the Melbourne Cup, on the first Tuesday in November. Caulfield also has a large Jewish population which includes mining magnate and new millennium saviour-turned-stormy petrel of the Melbourne Football Club, Joseph Gutnik. Caulfield, which is believed to have taken its name from a builder, John Caulfield, who arrived in Melbourne in 1837, is sprinkled with some of the city's grand colonial homes, including Labasa, the European Baroque mansion designed by J.A.B. Koch for pastoralist William Robertson.