Nugget: The horse, flu not only does it mean the sniffles from some of the biggest noses you will see outside of your own, and hankies the size of Casey Donovan’s ... well, hanky, it also means that one of this great brown land’s greatest and most reverential sporting events, the Melbourne Cup, is under threat.

Crow Boy: Even the horses are disappointed. There’s long faces in paddocks around the nation.

Really, Nugget, what’s the go with all this handbag activity? So they’ve got the flu. Get the nags some Vicks, sprinkle some lavender in the hay, pour a can of harden up in the water and put them back out there.

N: I believe Warwick Capper has even offered to rub VapoRub on their gigantic chests … well I think he said VapoRub, and I think he said chests.

CB: I think Warwick also mentioned that you need a tanned rear end to feature in adult films, but that’s a whole other column.

One of the greatest Australian institutions is under threat from this nasty flu, although there are surely other options to ensure the piss-up that is the first Tuesday in November is not lost.

N: As sure as Kevin Rudd loving the Wednesday night “Hot Wings, Breast and Thighs” party at the Crazy Horse, there is a solution.

Too long have these magnificent Australian athletes been pushed into the background by their taller, prettier equine cousins, but now it is their time in the sun, to rescue a national tradition. I refer, of course, to the greyhounds.

CB: Ah yes, the dishlickers – the untapped resource of the racing industry.

Earthy smells, K-Mart two-stripe track dacks, Old Spice, Dunlop KT26ers and the all-over body hair isn’t just restricted to the entrants. It’s like a chauffeured trip to the toilet by a hostie on a Qantas flight. It has fun written all over it.

N: Just imagine the sport of kings’ (obviously the bloke who came up with that has never seen ping pong) greatest day being run on the backs of specimens with names like “Sack and Crack” and “Mummy’s Little Biscuits”.

Save me a spot in the Carbine marquee please. Can you just imagine the call from John Tapp on Sky Racing: “Starter has the button, ooh there is a problem in box four, it would seem that Stardust Dreams is licking himself”.

CB: You can’t tell me that wouldn’t get backsides trackside. There’d be nothing better than throwing in a random labrador, which after being left at the start like Kyle Sandilands at an A-list celebrity party, would then wander off into the crowd to fossick for stray hotdogs and pasties.

Talk about taking the stars to the people.

N: How many people could say they have rubbed the belly of a Melbourne Cup winner and then allowed it a little bit of alone time with their left leg?

Well, there was that incident with Might and Power and Lady Susan Renouf’s pant leg in 1997, but it was put down to a spiked sugar cube.

CB: And it’s a commentator’s paradise for double entendres. We could let Dennis Cometti loose with “bitches”, “chasing tail”, “growling”…the whole concept has more potential a young, smouldering Kirk Cameron in Growing Pains.

N: If I dare take the notion further, everyone knows there is simply nothing funnier or more heart-warming than the sight of a monkey wearing pants.

Unless that same chimp is wearing a set of brightly coloured silks. Chuck a couple of primates atop those skinny mutts and Flemington will be stretched tighter than Mark “Tubby” Taylor in a pair of Bridget Jones-style control-top bog catchers.

CB: Does Matt Johns count as a monkey? Unfortunately, there is a group dedicated to the preservation of Matty Johns and all monkeys, and I dare say the do-gooders wouldn’t allow that marvellous concept.

We could always venture into the world of midgets riding Shetlands. Tell me that model hasn’t got legs?

N: A potential equine ban at Australian racing’s greatest day also has the opportunity to bring a number of burning social issues into this land’s largest forum.

Clearly at its heart, racing is simply something big and heavy being ridden by something small and light.

Don’t tell me the folks down at Emirates Airlines would consider pulling their sponsorship of the great race if we had anorexics riding the morbidly obese. Picture Nicole Ritchie atop someone from the Biggest Loser “too hard” basket.

CB: That would bring a whole new meaning to “correct weight”.