Caulfield plays host to the first Group One of the Victorian Spring Carnival, with the running of the time-honoured Memsie Stakes.
The track is currently rated a heavy 8 and with some more rain predicted Friday, runners fitness will be tested in the trying conditions.
The rail is true the entire circuit and at this set-up, horses will look for the A-ground wide of the track.
This is a cracking edition of the G3 McNeil Stakes, with a number of smart 2YO's now returning a year older.
I've leant to the side of race fitness, with a horse who genuinely stamped his G1 credentials at Sandown last time out.
This Godolphin colt belted the opposition by 6 lengths over the 1400m and what was impressive to the eye, was also backed up on the clock.
He sat handy to the speed with cover, and they didn't mess about travelling 3.5 lengths quicker than average to the 600m pole.
On straightening, he went past the field with ease and was hardly pushed out through the line, running his last 400m split 7 lengths quicker than average.
To record these figures while hardly being tested to the full extent, showed me an extremely promising horse with a blistering turn of foot.
Third up here, he will have fitness over a number of key rivals who come into this first up.
He is also drawn well in barrier three, and J Kah sticks aboard.
He ran a very close 2nd on debut in Sydney on a bottomless heavy 10 and it gives me confidence the wet track will be no issue.
Angling for value in the last and have landed on the G Begg trained Lunar Flare.
She ran fourth in the Listed Winter Championship behind Tuvalu, Mystery Shot and Sir Davy which is a very smart form reference.
After settling last in the big field behind a slow tempo, she started to make runs in behind the speed approaching the turn.
With the slow tempo in front, it was always going to be a near-impossible winning position.
She still managed to run a meeting fastest last 400m and finished with the seventh best last 200m of the day.
She goes much closer to the winner without being checked, but it was still a very good run and it needs to be followed now.
Trialled nicely in the interim to keep her up to the mark.
She maps nicely from the wider draw and also has no problems on a heavy track.
Looks good value in a tricky way to end the program.