"I reckon she's about a 33-1 chance," Cornish said.

And that's not because he doesn't think she can run a good race, it's because he's mindful of the high-quality field visiting the meet on Friday, combined with the unfortunate barrier 15 she's drawn for race seven.

"She's going to be extremely far outside," he said.

"Ideally we'd like her somewhere around eight ... that'd give us a good idea. You've got to find a good position before the first turn and I don't want her to be sitting wide the whole journey.

"Hopefully she can slot in somewhere cosy around the fence and then find an opening but if she stay three or four horses wide it'll be hard for her."

As for the field, the bookies have rated Zoffany's Lad ($3.80), Laure Me In ($4.80) and Reward Seeker ($7) as the three best shots to take out the cup and Cornish isn't under any illusions when it comes to assessing the sheer quality that'll be on display come Friday.

"It's a very good field with some very good horses in it," he said.

"She's still a 72-benchmark horse whereas some of these are 80 and 90. The Sydney horses will be really hard to beat."

If you look at the form guide, Athena's Voice is coming off a 10th-placed run at Wellington and while the race didn't go to plan for Cornish he had a quick explanation as to why.

"She just didn't adjust to the wet conditions, there," he said.

"Some horses are swimmers ... some of them love it but, for some others, it can scare them a bit when it gets slippery.

"The goal there was to just got some mileage in her legs."

Even though the odds aren't in her favour, Cornish knows what he's going to get from Athena's Voice at Towac Park and knows that anything's possible come race day.

"She's an honest horse and she loves the journey," he said.

"If she can run in the first eight or ten I'll be happy and yeah, the grade's a bit high and she's a bit out of her depth but a lot of those horses still have to travel here so we'll see what happens."

The Buckley's Carpet Court Orange Gold Cup is the seventh race of the day at Towac Park and is set to jump at 4.35pm. Towac Park is currently a soft five.