KEY POINTS:
Allan Sharrock says he doesn't disagree with punters who will make Wahid favourite for tomorrow's $77,000 Sir James Fletcher Stakes - but he has a small reservation.
It's the five-week gap between races.
Wahid missed his main late spring target when pulled out of the $270,000 Coupland's Bakeries Mile at Riccarton because of a rain-affected track.
And Sharrock has a niggle in the back of his mind that the extended gap may tell on Wahid if pressured late in tomorrow's Ellerslie feature.
"I'm very happy with him, he galloped extra well on Tuesday morning and made good time this morning under a tight hold, so he's very well.
"Although he didn't have the race at Riccarton and the whole thing turned out to be a holiday for him, at least he had the travelling to the South Island and back.
"If I had to say one way or the other I'd guess that the gap between races won't affect his chances, but there's always that possibility."
Sharrock sees at least one real positive: "He loves racing at Ellerslie and it's not a bad place to race - it's where the money is."
Wahid won the Derby at Ellerslie in March last year and his big target after Saturday is the $200,000 Zabeel Classic back on New Zealand's premier racetrack on Boxing Day.
But Sharrock says getting to that group one race provides trainers with headaches.
"You tell me where there is an open mile between this weekend and the Zabeel Classic to get a horse ready.
"We're all heading to the Zabeel and there just aren't the proper lead-up races.
"It means I'm almost certainly going to have to run him in the Manawatu Cup Trial on December 15, which is a pretty ordinary handicap race over 2000m.
"That's the same distance as the Zabeel and that's not ideal.
"I wanted his first run over 2000m this time to be in the Zabeel and he'd have run a beaut.
"I don't know on what basis they do this programming."
Because of the special conditions of this race several runners come in handily at the weights and one of the best suited is Dezigna.
The remarkable Matamata veteran has been carrying big weights and was carded at 59kg for the Coupland's Bakeries Mile. This time he drops to 57kg, only 3kg more than the minimum, a position he hasn't been in for a long time.
Dezigna scored two stunning wins at the start of his current preparation then struck an 'off' track in the Captain Cook Stakes at Trentham.
The rain-affected conditions at Riccarton were against him and so was his racing luck late in the big race.
"The track didn't suit him , but I believe he'd still have run a place had he not got an interrupted run," says co-trainer Vanessa Hillis. "He missed out on a gap in the home straight then had to switch to the inside, where the going was worse.
"I'm sure he'd have gone close to the placings instead of finishing seventh if he'd got through the original gap."
Xcellent, Sir Slick, Fiscal Madness, Kirra Sand and the Tauranga dead-heaters Who Knows and High Octane make this a fascinating race.
Sir Slick has yet to win at Ellerslie in 14 starts, although much of that is circumstantial.
A bigger negative in the eyes of punters is that he has been racing many lengths below his best - he appeared the first beaten in the home straight after leading at Tauranga.
He is the worst off in the handicap under these special conditions and if he is to turn his form around he will need to do it carrying 59kg topweight and giving some talented horses significant weight.
Fiscal Madness is on trial for Wedesday's $200,000 First Sovereign Trust Avondale Cup.
"He's still on the way up," said trainer John Sargent. "He ran up to win last time and came to the end."
