Murrell said the Hunter syndicators have high hopes throughout the 2020 spring carnival for the four-year-old gelding, which remains in England and won't travel to Australia until September.

"He'll come to Kris later this year," Murrell told the Newcastle Herald.

"We like what we see and think we've got ourselves a good Caulfield and Melbourne Cup runner.

"He's paying 200-1 at the moment, but if he's as good as we think he is then he'll end up somewhere near the top [of the betting].

"Hopefully this is the year."

Murrell, who previously struck Melbourne Cup success with German-bred Protectionist in 2014, said Almania would have a similar journey to last year's overseas runner Mustajeer with Lees' foreman Cameren Swan making the trip over to the United Kingdom.

Almania, trained by Newmarket-based David Simcock, has one win and two placings from nine career starts and was most recently third over 2847 metres at Royal Ascot on June 17.

Almania, sired by the stallion Australia out of the dam Sent From Heaven, defeated US charge Buffalo River in a 2018 maiden (1408m) and was third in the listed Noel Murless Stakes (2787m) in October.

Closer to home at Rosehill on Saturday and Australian Bloodstock again teamed up with Lees, only 48 hours after Sixties Groove's Grafton Cup victory, with four-year-old horse Korcha saluting in the De Bortoli Wines Handicap (2000m).

Korcha, steered by Nash Rawiller, beat Chris Waller's New Arrangement by 1.3 lengths and paid $19 for the result.

Elsewhere, Lees notched up another winner at Hakesbury on Sunday with three-year-old gelding Syncline extending the Novocastrian's lead to 10.5 over Waller in the NSW trainer's premiership standings with less than three weeks left this season.

Already during 2019-20, Lees has prepared 184 winners across the state and 205.5 nationwide. He finished second on the Newcastle tally with 20 after his home campaign wrapped up last week.

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