Nerves but no falls as maligned contest finally blossoms

It's ladies’ day and not a drop has been drunk but there are already several queasy combatants out on the battlefield.

“I feel a bit sick to be honest,” says Georgie Lane-Godfrey, although the fact she is walking the course at 10.20am suggests the source of her floaty stomach does not originate from a bottle.

Instead it is the thought of something that is troubling body and mind, and it is due to arrive in three hours when she lines up at the start of the Magnolia Cup.