The Melbourne Cup has been run and won for another year, but the 150th running has provided the average punter and race-goer with a few importnant hints for next year's cup and racing in general.

Zipping is the most underrated horse in Australia. This horse is an absolute freak, and it is sad his sensational efforts this Spring will almost certainly be lost in all the hype of So You Think's third placing at the Melbourne Cup.

To finish fourth in three of the last five Melbourne Cups and ninth in his other attempt is a simply remarkable effort, but to do it as a nine-year-old on a heavy track and in the toughest field of the past decade is almost unthinkable. Don't forget the old bay champ won the Turnbull Stakes and was runner-up in the Cox Plate to possibly the best 2000m horse in the world. And if he can win a fourth consecutive Sandown Classic victory in two weeks, that would be the ultimate finale to a sensational career.

The winner of the Geelong Cup is always a good form line for judging the Melbourne Cup. Amercain did the double this year and follows on from Bauer (2008), On A Jeune (2005), Zazzman (2003) and Media Puzzle (2002) as Geelong Cup winners to run a place in the big one two weeks later. The between years include Leica Ding, The Fuzz and Mandela, all good horses who either ran a quality race in the Cup or won the 2500m Group 3 Saab Quality on Derby Day.

Shocking was never going to win. In the 150-year history of the Melbourne Cup, only four horses have gone back-to-back. Lugging the top weight of 57kg was always going to be a tough ask. This became pretty much insurmountable as soon as the rain came and the track started to get heavy. Only one freak has ever done that, a mare called Makybe Diva in 2005; perhaps you've heard of her?

Dato Tan Chin Nam will do the right thing and retire his champion So You Think. Two Cox Plates and a third place in a Melbourne Cup will mean the entire's service fee will be absolutely huge by the time he becomes a world-class stallion. Right now he is worth $60 million, easily. If So You Think continues to run, but the form isn't there, the price will drop dramatically. At the moment he is the best horse in Australia, meaning the first-year service fee is certainly at its peak. Any more racing will only harm his future breeding prospects, just ask the owners of Denman.

One man who could (should?) follow So You Think into retirement is his trainer, the great James Bartholomew Cummings. At 83, and battling ill health, what more does he have to prove? He's won 12 Melbourne Cups, five Cox Plates and, on Tuesday, produced a magnificent training effort to almost turn a 2000m horse into a 13th Melbourne Cup winner.

Every punter finally found out just who the greatest digital horse is. Debate will always rage on between mates in pubs, but Channel Seven did a fantastic job in deciding the greatest ever Melbourne Cup winner. Phar Lap simply had to win; it would be like not voting Sir Donald Bradman as the greatest cricketer ever. Carbine, the horse who regularly won twice on the same race day, and three-time winner Makybe Diva were duly rewarded with the minor placings.

(Kyle Sheldon is a LaTrobe University journalism student and Back Page Lead intern.)