Waterhouse has the top-class galloper Grand Armee engaged, to be ridden by Australia's champion jockey Damien Oliver - a rider well known to Hong Kong racegoers and the winner of last year's international jockeys' challenge at Happy Valley.

Waterhouse has been Sydney champion trainer four times since taking out her licence in 1993 and has regularly dominated Group Ones in her home town.

But the woman they call Racing's First Lady has endured an eight-year Group One drought in Melbourne - a sequence that has seen her subjected to a cruel amount of derision.

'I couldn't think of another race I would want to win more than the Cox Plate,' Waterhouse said yesterday. 'I just want to break through down here. I want to win one of the majors in Melbourne.

Since All Our Mob won the Mackinnon Stakes on Derby Day, 1996, has been forced to steel herself against a growingly-critical Melbourne press who repeatedly challenge her ability to win a big race in the southern capital.

'We all experience it [losing streaks] and because I'm under the microscope when I come to Melbourne it becomes more glaring because its been a while between drinks,' she admitted. 'I don't like it when I don't win Group One races here.'

Waterhouse believes Grand Armee is as good a chance as she has ever had in the Cox Plate.

'All Our Mob and Juggler ran third and fourth for me in the 1996 Cox Plate,' Waterhouse recalled. 'They were two exceptional horses and they fought out a very close finish with Saintly and Filante. That was my best result so far in the Cox Plate but Grand Armee's at least as good a chance as they were.'

Waterhouse's late father won a record seven Cox Plates, including Kingston Town's famous hat-trick in 1980-82. She was at Moonee Valley for Kingston Town's three wins and says the memory of those triumphs remain as vivid today as ever.

'I also remember how Dad used to get Kingston Town up for the race, how he would get him to his peak for the Cox Plate. There is a bit of an art to it.'

Waterhouse revealed she had been aiming Grand Armee specifically at the Cox Plate since the day the gelding humbled champion Lonhro in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Randwick last autumn.

'With his racing style and his ability, he's the ideal Cox Plate horse. His grand final is tomorrow, this is the race he has been set for,' she added.

'Along the way we wanted to win the George Main Stakes (Gr 1, 1,600m), which he did, and then we had a look at the Epsom Handicap. We decided not to run him on the wet track in the Epsom and in hindsight it might work out for the better. We were able to bring him to Melbourne and give him a lead-up run at Caulfield before the Cox Plate.

'He proved in the Yalumba Stakes [second to Mummify] that he can get around the Melbourne way so that little worry is behind us.

'He's definitely improved since that run and there won't be a fitter horse in the Cox Plate.'

The Oliver factor is a significant one. The champion won the Cox Plate in 1997 on Dane Ripper and has grown in confidence that Grand Armee can give him his second.

'Damien rode him work last Saturday morning and said the horse felt great.

'He came out again on Tuesday and said Grand Armee felt even better. He's perfect for the Cox Plate,' she added.