Trainer John O'Shea is counting on a high attrition rate being confirmed at acceptance time on Wednesday for Kingdoms to run in the Group One Metropolitan.

Kingdoms, despite his status as a placegetter in this year's ATC Australian Derby, is equal 64th in the order of entry for Saturday's race at Randwick.

In spite of his ballot predicament, Kingdoms was still on the cusp of making the field on Tuesday because of a expected withdrawals.

But while jockey James McDonald has rejected several rides in the feature to be available for the mount, O'Shea is taking nothing for granted.

The trainer has also nominated Kingdoms for the Craven Plate and the four-year-old will run in the weight-for-age race on Saturday if he misses the cut in the Metropolitan.

A capacity field of 18 is expected to be declared for the Metropolitan.

O'Shea has made the Metropolitan Kingdoms' Sydney spring target while looking deeper into the spring.

"It's not a conventional Metropolitan program for me," O'Shea said.

"If I was adamant we wanted to win the Metropolitan I probably would have been more inclined to run him in the Colin Stephen or the Newcastle Cup.

"But I want to leave plenty of gas in the tank because if we didn't win the race it wouldn't be the end of the section."

Kingdoms is an $11 chance in Metropolitan betting after turning in two genuine stayer's runs since he returned from a spell as a gelding.

His most recent start at weight-for-age carried merit despite his sixth of nine starters in the Hill Stakes.

Carried off the track on the turn by the wayward Melbourne galloper Masked Marvel, Kingdoms warmed up late in the race to finish less than four lengths from the winner Moriarty.