The favourites have all drawn ideally for Saturday's $3 million Cox Plate at Moonee Valley with a full field of 14 runners to contest Australia's weight-for-age championship.
It is only the third time since 1995 that the race has attracted a capacity field but the second year in a row.
The favourite for the race in Gai Waterhouse's exciting three-year-old Pierro drew barrier seven at Tuesday morning's draw - the most successful gate in Cox Plate history.
Owners get to draw their own barriers in the Cox Plate - after the horses names are called out by a random draw - and Pierro's connections were lucky enough to be the third horse called out.
Earlier Waterhouse pulled a major surprise with her champion mare More Joyous, who was the first horse called out in the draw - with Waterhouse surprisingly electing to choose barrier 11.
However Pierro will be jumping from the barrier that has produced a record 11 Cox Plate winners, the last of them So You Think in 2009.
But rival three-year-old colt All Too Hard - the younger brother of Black Caviar who upstaged Pierro in the Caulfield Guineas - also drew perfectly in barrier three.
Second favourite Green Moon - to be ridden by last year's Cox Plate winning jockey and winner of the past two Caulfield Cups in Craig Williams - also drew well in barrier five while third favourite Ocean Park - to be ridden by Glen Boss - drew barrier nine.
However the bad luck with barrier draws for last year's Caulfield Cup winner Southern Speed continued when she drew barrier 13.
Southern Speed was scratched from last week's Caulfield Cup after drawing barrier 14 to focus on the Cox Plate, but now again faces the prospect of having a hard run from a wide gate as she did when running unplaced at her previous outing in the Turnbull Stakes.
Last year's third placegetter Rekindled Interest drew the inside gate.
This year's field contains three three-year-olds with Waterhouse's Spring Champion Stakes runner-up Proisir joining Caulfield Guineas winner All Too Hard and runner-up Pierro in the race.
It is the most three-year-olds to contest the race since five youngsters ran in the 1992 edition with all three to carry just 49.5kg under the weight-for-age scale.
2012 COX PLATE FIELDHorse - Jockey - Weight - Barrier1. Shoot Out - Hugh Bowman - 59kg - 42. Sincero - Michael Rodd - 59kg - 123. Glass Harmonium - James McDonald - 59kg - 24. Green Moon - Craig Williams - 59kg - 55. Rekindled Interest - Dwayne Dunn - 59kg - 16. Linton - Steven Arnold - 59kg - 14.7. Happy Trails - Kerrin McEvoy - 59kg - 88. Ethiopia - Rhys McLeod - 57.5kg - 69. Ocean Park - Glen Boss - 57.5kg - 910. More Joyous - Nash Rawiller - 57kg - 1111. Southern Speed - Luke Nolen - 57kg - 1312. Pierro - Corey Brown - 49.5kg - 713. All Too Hard - Chris Munce - 49.5kg - 314. Proisir - Craig Newitt - 49.5kg - 10.