The John O'Shea-trained Kingdoms starts a make-or-break run towards the Melbourne Cup when he continues his spring campaign at Randwick on Saturday.

Kingdoms will take his place as one of the favourites in the City Tattersalls Club Cup and a win will put him on a float to Melbourne.

While a victory won't be good enough to secure Kingdoms a Melbourne Cup start, it will set him up for a chance to secure a ballot-free entry into the race.

"If he runs well we'll give him his chance to get into the Cup field via the Lexus Stakes," O'Shea said.

It's an unconventional but not improbable way to secure a ticket into Australia's biggest race.

Maluckyday took the same path before running second to Americain in the 2010 Melbourne Cup.

A comparison of their Classic-season and four-year-old form shows there is a case to say Kingdoms has superior credentials to Maluckyday at the same point of their careers.

Maluckyday was placed in the Tulloch Stakes but didn't contest the Australian Derby, a race Kingdoms figured in this year as a placegetter behind It's A Dundeel.

And while Maluckyday won in restricted class before his Randwick success, Kingdoms goes into Saturday's race after running in the Group One Metropolitan.

Numerically his Metropolitan run looks an average one in finishing 10th of 14 runners behind Seville.

But O'Shea said he took encouragement from Kingdoms' effort to get within four lengths of the winner.

"I thought his Metrop run was great ... he couldn't win it the way the race was run," he said.

"He's obviously had a bit of racing now and I think he's ready to run a race."

Of the 11 City Tattersalls Club Cup runners, six horses have been kept in the Melbourne Cup at the second acceptance stage.

The most prominent of the group is Ironstein, the hardy stayer who has been displaced at the top of betting for Saturday's race by the Gai Waterhouse-trained Vaquera.