“The race panned out pretty well. Probably when the gap appeared I had to ask him to improve quick before it closed. We might have got there a little too soon, but to his credit, when that horse [Anamoe] got to him, he really fought and was good and solid to the line.”

Williams said he was really disappointed to finish second in the great race.

“Because of contact made by the winner, we had good grounds to hopefully overturn the positions in the stewards’ room, but we weren’t so fortunate,” Williams said.

“That’s racing. We move on.”

The victory proved a career highlight for Allen, who came over from Ireland as a jumps jockey and has held his own in Victoria’s competitive jockey ranks.

State Of Rest had come to Australia with just eight starts to his name, but his lead-up run - a win in America in the Saratoga Derby - showed he had a turn of foot capable of taking on Australia’s weight-for-age contenders.

O’Brien, a two-time Melbourne Cup-winning trainer, follows in the footsteps of his father Aidan, who brought race winner Adelaide to Melbourne in 2014 and won the Cox Plate with a similar profile.

Champion mare Verry Elleegant flashed from the back to get third, beaten a length, while Mo’unga got fourth for Annabel Neasham, whose star galloper Zaaki was sensationally scratched on the morning of the race due to an elevated temperature.

Three-year-old Captivant led up the Cox Plate field with 49.5kg, with Kiwi galloper Callsign Mav settling off the colt’s back. The field stayed clear of the fence, after rain throughout the meeting left the rail chopped up.

Allen sat back sixth in the field of eight, but rode the horse for luck. He travelled to the school, where those outsiders ahead of him were battling to take him any further, and a gap opened allowing State Of Rest to pounce on the lead.

But Anamoe was on his back, following the European raider wherever he went. When they turned into the straight, Williams took Anamoe to State Of Rest’s inside, but was slightly impacted as the O’Brien colt laid in under pressure.

But the pair had clear running over the final 100 metres and Anamoe couldn’t get past him, with stewards determining any contact between the horses did not cost Anamoe the win.

Jockey Damian Lane said Verry Elleegant ran super to finish within a length of the winner.

“[I] thought I was the winner down the side but to the first two’s credit they gave a kick, and it was a margin that I couldn’t pull back,” Lane said.

Hugh Bowman said Mo’unga put in a game effort for fourth. Dean Yendall reported Captivant didn’t appreciate the wet, while Daniel Moor reported Dalasan didn’t run a strong 2000 metres.

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Brett Prebble said Probabeel would have liked a firmer surface.

“It’s not her preferred footing but gave me an awesome feel and as soon as I went for another gear she couldn’t go in it,” he said.