More than 310,000 people attended the four days of the Melbourne Cup carnival at Flemington.

The Melbourne Cup Carnival came to a close with Saturday’s Emirates Stakes Day, attracting a strong crowd of 68,873.

The crowd on Victoria Derby Day was 87,526, 90,536 attended the Melbourne Cup last Tuesday and there were 63,673 at the Oaks meeting on Thursday.

Over the four days 497 horses competed in 37 races, representing an average field size of 13.4 runners.

The four race cards, offering more than $19 million in prize money, saw 25 individual trainers and 22 jockeys enjoy victory. The eight Group One races were won by eight different trainers and eight different jockeys.

Highlights of the carnival were a record-breaking sixth Emirates Melbourne Cup win for owner Lloyd Williams with Rekindling and Hall of Fame trainer Gai Waterhouse winning the VRC Oaks for the first time with Pinot with her training partner Adrian Bott.

The J.B. Cummings Excellence Award went to the Waterhouse and Bott training partnership for their outstanding results over the Melbourne Cup Carnival, winning five races including the Oaks.

The Ron Hutchinson Excellence Award was won by jockey Damian Lane.

The VRC estimated that Channel 7’s coverage of the Emirates Melbourne Cup reached a remarkable 1.6 million global unique viewers in through live coverage and twitter. The twitter tag #MelbourneCup trended in 12 countries and 124 cities around the globe, reaching the #1 trending term in five countries — Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.

The Channel 7 live coverage peaked at 2.7 million viewers around the country while 7Live delivered 350,000 streams.

The carnival attracted four cruise ships from New Zealand, Sydney (2) and Brisbane - the most ever docked in Melbourne at one time – that delivered a record 8800 visitors to the Melbourne Cup.

“The Melbourne Cup Carnival was again a resounding tourism success story. This is Australia’s original major event, and it contributes to the economy like no other,” said VRC chair Amanda Elliott.

Richmond’s Crystal Kimber, 28, won the Myer Fashions on the Field National Women’s Racewear competition.

CUP WEEK LEADING TRAINERS: Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott (5), Darren Weir (4), Mathew Ellerton and Simon Zahra (3), Tony McEvoy, Mike Moroney, James Cummings (3)

CUP WEEK LEADING JOCKEYS: Damian Lane, Stephen Baster (4), Patrick Moloney, Kerrin McEvoy (3), Michael Dee, Michael Walker, Chris Symons, Corey Brown, Brenton Avdulla (2)

Melbourne Cup Carnival Group 1 winners