"History tells you Chris Waller is not a trainer that likes to run many in the Oaks … I think last year might have been his first runner.”

So said Blake Shinn after De Armas’s win in Saturday’s Wakeful Stakes.

He wasn’t wrong, either. The Pearls, runner-up for Waller in last year’s Crown Oaks and unsighted on a racetrack since, was indeed his first runner in Victoria’s premier fillies’ classic.

Waller may in the past have believed it’s too early in the season to run fillies over 2500 metres. Since 2010 he’s had 19 runners in autumn’s Australian Oaks (2400m), winning it with Royal Descent (2013), Unforgotten (2018), Verry Elleegant (2019), Hungry Heart (2021) and Ohope Wins (2026).

He’ll have his second, third and fourth Crown Oaks runners this Thursday when Wakeful Stakes winner De Armas tackles the race along with Your Colour (11th in the Wakeful) and Tharwa (ninth). And any qualms Waller might have had should be assuaged by the record of Wakeful runners, especially Wakeful winners, in the main event.

European trainers might be horrified by the idea of running a filly in a Group 1 Oaks five days after racing her over 2000 metres, but in this case it seems to work.

Of 89 Wakeful winners to have backed up in the Oaks, 39 have won — a remarkable strike rate of 43.8 per cent.

By comparison, of the 50 Thousand Guineas winners to tackle the Oaks, 17 have won (34%). For the Edward Manifold it’s 18/56 (32.1%), for the Ethereal Stakes 2/21 (9.5%).

Throw in those who ran in the Wakeful but didn’t win it and the benefit of that pipe-opener looks even greater. Of the past eight Oaks winners, four won the Wakeful and three ran second. The exception was She’s Extreme, who came through a third in the Spring Champion.