Heavy rain has seen Flemington downgraded to a Heavy 8 this morning following the first race.

Significant flooding has already started to occur toward’s the inside rail at the finishing post, which could potentially push back the start time of today’s Melbourne Cup.

Robert Cram, Racing Victoria’s chairman of stewards, is optimistic that the race will go ahead as planned.

“There’s some various minor flooding around the track, we’re hoping that won’t pose any further problems” Cram told Racing.com. 

The track downgrade leaves punters scrambling to try and find runners with consistent wet track form. As for the jockey’s, the conditions pose plenty of problems.

“The surface water is quite substantial,” winning jockey Mark Zahra said after riding Bella Rosa in the first.

“Going up the straight there we couldn’t see much, I was lucky I had an uninterrupted run, the weather is very bad.”

Further updates will be posted below.