Hall of Fame trainer Chris Waller will saddle his first runner in the 2500-metre event at Flemington.
The Sydney-based Kiwi has risen to become Australia’s premier big-race trainer and has won nine Group 1 Oaks – four in Sydney, three in Brisbane and two in Adelaide – along with this year’s ATC Australian Derby with filly Aeliana.
Champions Winx and Verry Elleegant are among the fillies Waller has trained to win an Oaks.
But he has never pushed one to get to Australia’s only Group 1 Oaks run in the first half of the season.
The Pearls, a daughter of Proisir, gets there via a third placing in the Group 1 Spring Champion Stakes (2000m) at Randwick on October 25.
That’s the precisely the formline She’s Extreme took into the 2022 VRC Oaks, which she won as $2.30 favourite.
The Spring Champion was a poor race for fillies when run on Epsom Day, but the girls have had more of an impact since it moved away from that meeting in 2013.
Six fillies have run top-three in the Spring Champion in that time with She’s Extreme one of three who progressed to the VRC Oaks.
The others were Yankee Rose and Montefilia, who both won the Spring Champion and started odds-on favourite in the Oaks.
Yankee Rose ($1.95) was injured in the run and only beat one home, while Montefilia ($1.80) could manage only third placing behind Personal.
They all started favourite but punters could get $8.50 about The Pearls on Wednesday morning thanks to the presence of Getta Good Feeling, who was as short as $1.75 after a soft win in the Wakeful Stakes.
Danny O’Brien’s daughter of So You Think is out to become the 40th filly to complete the Wakeful/Oaks double and second in a row following Treasurethe Moment.
The 39 who have done the double come from just 88 who have tried, giving Wakeful winners a 44 percent hit rate in the Oaks.
Twenty of the past 30 Oaks winners backed up out of the Wakeful, half of whom filled a quinella slot in the 2000m Group 2.
Getta Good Feeling is out to become the fifth favourite in a row to win the Oaks and is the only runner shorter than The Pearls.
Favourites have won 12 of the past 22 Oaks with Lasqueti Spirit – who is the race’s longest-priced winner thanks to her win at $101 in 2016 – is the only winner at longer than $7.50 in that time.
