KEY POINTS:
Matamata trainer Mark Walker hopes to induct another member to his "Dream Team" of fillies a little after 3.30pm at Te Rapa today.
By then, if all goes to plan, late-bloomer Fuar will prove she's worth the $6750 late nomination fee for the $300,000 New Zealand Oaks on
March 17.
Just a few months back, Fuar was so far off the Trentham radar she didn't have a raceday name - that's why the camp left her out of the original Oaks' entries.
But the impressive last-start Rotorua winner has improved so fast that Walker says victory in the R72 2100m today is all the Kaapstad filly needs to seal a group one bid, in just her fourth race-day start.
"She's a filly that can stay; I have no doubt she'll run the 2400m out pretty good," said Walker.
If the daughter of 2001 NZ St Leger winner Forfar is successful at Te Rapa she'll join a powerful team of Walker-trained Oaks runners, headed by Desert Gold Stakes winner Princess Coup.
The other definite Te Akau starters are Soelin and exciting Te Rapa rival Zygadene.
Walker says his Mercedes Derby hopefuls Santagostino and Uberalles could still get there too, but they'd need to shake off Saturday's 2400m at Ellerslie in record time.
Fuar will need to be something special to make it through her final hurdle today.
She jumps from the 18 gate against an in-form Zygadene and a trio of borderline Oaks' candidates desperate to escape the Trentham ballot, Mayday Jones, Grande Ballare and Cent From Above.
Walker admits he considered scratching Zygadene when he saw her lumped with 58kg from the widest alley.
But every alternative Oaks' lead-up he turned to came with even more cons than Te Rapa for Peter and Philip Vela's Zabeel filly.
"I looked at the Ellerslie Oaks but that's only 10 days before the Oaks, and I didn't really want to go to Wellington for the Lowland Stakes and give her two long trips away in as many weeks," he said.
"It just makes more sense to travel 45 minutes to Te Rapa and home again."
Walker said he'll leave the race-plan headache to rider Opie Bosson; he knows she goes into the race in career-best shape.
He said Zygadene has thrived since her luckless last-start second to Castlebar in the Oaks' Trial (1800m) at New Plymouth on February 17.
"She got pushed into the fence at the top of the straight; if that hadn't happened, she probably would have won," he said.
Exciting Otaki maiden Fuji Walk, who finished just in behind Zygadene that day, gets a great chance to press for Oaks glory two races earlier at Te Rapa.
The Karen Zimmerman-trained filly was late working clear in her previous start this campaign, when fifth as favourite to Zygadene over 1600m at Hawera. Two runs before that she ran midfield in the group one Levin Classic, before a fourth in the group three Eulogy Stakes.