Nick Olive briefly thought about skipping the Canberra Cup and tossing Maid of Ore to the wolves at Royal Randwick, but the absence of a Youngstar will keep the promising stayer in the capital this weekend.
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The Duporth five-year-old is the capital's best chance in the $250,000 Canberra Cup (2000 metres) at Thoroughbred Park on Monday.
Olive initially considered sending Maid of Ore to Sydney instead of running in his home town's feature race due to the strong quality of nominations.
Former Winx-trainer Chris Waller nominated seven horses, including Group 1 Queensland Oaks winner Youngstar and in-form stayer Shared Ambition.
But Waller has opted to keep his two star horses in Sydney to race in the Randwick City Stakes instead, leaving Olive confident to contest the Canberra Cup.
"It does help. There's a few factors that definitely lured us towards Canberra over Sydney," Olive said.
"We probably favoured Canberra, we just wanted to make sure she would get a run. Canberra is our hometown and we'd love to win our home town Cup, it's great prize money also.
"I think it's a pretty strong field actually, the club has done a good job of getting some good horses here. It'll be hard to win but it's worth a quarter of a million, so there's some good prizemoney at the end of it."
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Maid of Ore has won four of her last seven starts and is coming off a podium finish at Thoroughbred Park. She ran third in last month's Canberra Mile (1600 metres), finishing behind the Freedman-trained Cinquedea and Jason Coyle's Valentino Rossa.
She drew gate seven at the barrier draw on Thursday, an ideal position for the fleet-footed mare.
Joseph and Jones Racing's Mercurial Lad has drawn the widest gate with 14, while Todd Smart-trained Great Glen drew barrier nine.
"Six would have been ideal but when it got down between 14, seven and something else, we were very happy to draw the seven," Olive said.
"For my horse it's perfect. She doesn't want to draw inside too close to the fence in case she misses the start, so it's a perfect draw for her.
"Her preparation has been faultless, everything has gone fantastic. She's taken each day in her stride and I think she's really improved since running third in the Canberra Mile.
"I can't wait to get her over 2000 metres and she's really looking forward to that."
Tommy Berry will take the saddle once again after riding Maid of Ore to victory on Everest Day.
He's been booked to ride 10 horses across the two-day carnival, including Golden Slipper prospect Cessabeel in the group 3 Black Opal (1200 metres).
Black Opal Day kicks off the inaugural Canberra Racing Carnival, which has seen the Opal split apart from the Canberra Cup to form a two-day event across the long weekend.
The Black Opal Stakes and National Sprint will headline Sunday's meet, which will be a traditional day of racing with all the glitz and glamour. The public holiday will be family orientated, featuring the Canberra Guineas and Canberra Cup.
The capital has been hit with a deluge of rainfall over the past two days, but Canberra Racing Club boss Andrew Clark is hopeful the track will be in top condition come Sunday.
"We're definitely confident with how the track will play across the two days," Clark said.
"It's fantastic to get rain for the community at this time, so we're happy it's come now and not on race day.
"I believe the track will dry sufficiently in tie and there'll be racing on a soft surface, every horse will get their chance.
"Our preparations are going well, the rain is slowing things down a little bit but we're happy of where things are at the moment. We'll be ready to go for the coming days."
Canberra Racing Carnival at Thoroughbred Park
Sunday: National Sprint (1400 metres) at 4.30pm, Black Opal Stakes (1200 metres) at 5.10pm.
Monday: Canberra Guineas (1400 metres) at 4.30pm, Canberra Cup (2000 metres) at 5.15pm.