High spirits on unique night despite rain and favourite's flop

The view of the Melbourne skyline from the Moonee Valley grandstand during a night meeting is spectacular, they tell me. It looks like I am going to have to take their word for it because the weather on this Friday evening is horrendous.

We are all here for the first night of Moonee Valley's Cox Plate Carnival, the course's showpiece two-day meeting and one of the highlights of the Spring Carnival but unfortunately the conditions are more British spring than Australian.

It is pouring down and nobody apart from the horses and their riders, who have no choice after all, is daring to venture out from the shelter of the grandstand.