Geelong Cup winner Gatewood will run in Saturday's Lexus Stakes (2500m) in a last ditch attempt to qualify for the Melbourne Cup after the latest round of acceptances on Monday still left the Terry Henderson and Simon O'Donnell owned galloper well short of securing an automatic entry into Australia's greatest race.
Just three of the top 38 horses in betting dropped out of contention for a start in the race that stops a nation when second acceptances were taken on Monday.
Those horses were Peter Moody's injured star Manighar and the Lloyd Williams owned pair of Seville and Midas Touch.
Those withdrawals left the highly-rated Gatewood - trained by English-based Italian trainer Luca Cumani - at No.33 in order of entry for a start in the field of 24 for the $6.2 million Melbourne Cup on November 6.
However Gatewood is not the only highly-rated foreign raider still struggling to secure a start in the Melbourne Cup, with Godolphin's Lost In The Moment, French horse Brigantin - which ran third behind Gatewood in the Geelong Cup - Cumani's Ibicenco and even Herbert Power Handicap winner in the French trained Shahwardi all currently outside the top 24 in the order of entry.
The last chance for horses to move up the order of entry and into the Cup field is by winning Saturday's Lexus Stakes, which guarantees the winner a start in the Melbourne Cup.
The group one weight-for-age MacKinnon Stakes over 2000m on Saturday also guarantees the winner a start in the Melbourne Cup but that race is not expected to be contested by those on the fringe of a Cup start given it always attracts a better quality field than the Lexus.
And while foreign trained horses continue to dominate the betting markets for this year's Melbourne Cup - with French pair Americain (the 2010 Cup winner) and Dunaden (the reigning Melbourne and Caulfield Cup winner) heading the betting followed by the Cumani trained Mount Athos - plenty of local hopes are at this stage on target to gain a start in the Cup.
Of the top 24 ranked horses at present, 16 are Australian-trained with Moody while record 12 time winner Bart Cummings, Gai Waterhouse, Team Hawkes, Michael Kent and Lloyd Williams' private trainer Robert Hickmott all have two runners currently on target for a Cup start.
The trio of Cup contenders that contested the Cox Plate in Ethiopia, Green Moon and Southern Speed were all paid up for by their connections.
In total there are 46 horses left in contention for a Melbourne Cup start with the final field to be announced after Saturday's Derby Day meeting.
Meanwhile it will not only be Cumani, Henderson and O'Donnell sweating on a Melbourne Cup start for Gatewood but also renowned big race jockey Glen Boss.
Boss, the rider of the legendary Makybe Diva in each of her three Melbourne Cup wins and fresh from his third Cox Plate win aboard Ocean Park on Saturday, is currently without a ride in this year's Melbourne Cup.
Boss' manager Rhys Murphy told Melbourne racing radio station RSN on Monday morning that the champion hoop will ride Gatewood in the Lexus on Saturday with the aim of getting the English trained stayer into the Melbourne Cup.
'If Gatewood wins and pulls up fit and well then we will stick with him in the Melbourne Cup otherwise it will be left until Saturday night after the races (to find an alternative ride for Boss if Gatewood doesn't make the Cup field).'
Gatewood would likely surge into the top six in Melbourne Cup betting should he win a start in the race considering the strong form line of Geelong Cup winners in the Melbourne Cup in recent years.
The Geelong Cup has replaced the far more lucrative $2.5 million Caulfield Cup as the most important guide to the Melbourne Cup in recent years with Dunaden winning the Geelong Cup/Melbourne Cup double last year- the year after another French galloper Americain did likewise in 2010.
And Irish galloper Media Puzzle also famously did the double in 2002 while the Cumani trained galloper Bauer won the 2008 Geelong Cup and then was beaten a nose by Bart Cummings' Viewed in the Melbourne Cup.
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