NEWCASTLE trainer Kris Lees is confident the Sydney form will stand up in Saturday's Caulfield Guineas before he unleashes class filly Samantha Miss in the Cox Plate at Moonee Valley two weeks later.

Lees doesn't have a runner in the Caulfield Guineas, for which a capacity field of 20, including four emergencies, was declared yesterday.

"But I'd still like to see the Sydney brigade run well in the Caulfield Guineas," Lees said at yesterday's Sydney launch of the Cox Plate, which is left with 33 potential combatants after third declarations. "It's good for the confidence if the Sydney form holds up early in the Melbourne spring."

The Kevin Moses-trained Rhyno Chaser was paid up for the Caulfield Guineas, drawing barrier 17, but is still under the hoof-injury cloud that ruled him out of last weekend's Spring Champion Stakes.

"His foot is not 100 per cent and if we aren't happy with him in the morning then he won't go to Melbourne this week, he couldn't handle the float trip down if he is feeling any pain," Moses's wife, Jenny, said last night.

The likely scratching of Rhyno Chaser would pave the way for the Rick Worthington-trained Whitefriars to secure a start after it was named first emergency.

Larry Cassidy has been booked to partner Whitefriars while Corey Brown rides Baci Amore for David Payne. Duporth (Hugh Bowman) and Dreamscape (Nash Rawiller) complete the Sydney-based team contesting the $1 million race.

Meanwhile, Lees said Samantha Miss, which he declared to be "short enough now in the market for the Cox Plate" would travel to Melbourne on Friday night and arrive early Saturday morning at the stables of Ross McDonald, who prepares Cox Plate favourite Weekend Hussler.

"She'll have the rest of the weekend to settle in down there and then it is a matter of her holding her form," Lees said. "I'm under no illusions, it's a huge ask to get her down there and win a Cox Plate as a three-year-old filly. You've got to go back to Surround in 1976 to find another that's won it."

McDonald said Weekend Hussler had pulled up well since his unplaced effort as an odds-on favourite in the Turnbull Stakes last weekend and said the defeat had been put down to "probably the bad barrier and a bit of pilot error".

"He worked a mile and a half this morning and Les [Beer, his work rider] said it's the best he's worked," McDonald said.