The day Ireland took over Australia and dazzled on the biggest stage of all

Flemington is frosted by a bitterly cold wind which has women wishing they had less skin on show, men regretting the sockless ban was lifted and ice-cream vans without so much as a customer never mind a queue.

It is officially the coldest Melbourne Cup day in more than a decade. Not to worry, us Irish acclimatise to new surroundings very quickly; more about that later.

There are ten races so it's lucky the first is at 11am. We'd be here all night if it wasn't. It feels like 479 of the official crowd of 97,479 have made it in for the opener. They're shrewd souls down here, they time their runs. There's no point peaking too early.