It's the five-year-old mare's determined personality that's given Cornish the inclination to send her out again on Sunday as she's gearing up for her ninth run this preparation in the $20,000 Parkes XXXX Gold Parkes Cup (1600m), the seventh race of the day.

And it's also led him to believe the $26 figure that's been slapped on Athena's Voice by the oddsmakers is a bit of value.

"She's a better chance than that," Cornish said.

"It's another good country trip and there's a few standouts but they're all pretty well equal in ability."

Sunday's event at the Parkes Jockey Club is 800m less than her last start at Warwick Farm, a journey that was a few hundred metres too long, according to Cornish.

"It was just a bit too far for her," he said.

"If it was 2100 metres she would have been right in it. It was a reasonable run but it was just outside her best distance.

"She pulled up really well and I've brought her back down to 1600, here."

Despite alluding to a spell after the city trip, Cornish says his day-to-day run-ins with the mare have gone well and he sees no reason to not make hay while the sun shines.

"You've got to assess her weekly and see how she's going... she's eating well and she's done everything right," he said.

"She's still working good and she's got a good attitude at the moment and while she's going well, we'll keep chipping away and see if we can win a race."

The odds for Athena's Voice are high but Cornish can understand why a few of the other horses are priced the way they are as he gave an assessment of the field.

"Steamin' ($7.50) goes really well," he said.

"He won really well at Canberra the other day and was pretty impressive... he's going to be hard to beat."

Despite Cornish's opinion on Steamin', Daniel Seib's Assault'n'Bathory ($2.90) is the favourite.

Barrier seven isn't perfect but according to Cornish, if you draw anything inside the eighth, you've done pretty well for yourself.

"You've got to be happy with that... anything around seven or better and you've got a good chance of getting to the fence," he said.

"I would have preferred two or three but you know, I'm happy with that."

"She just tries really hard and while they're trying hard, you've got a chance of getting the biccies."

Race seven jumps at 3.50pm.