Munsef looking good ahead of Melbourne Cup

Another overseas contender is gearing up to try to take the Melbourne Cup prize pot abroad on Tuesday.

English trainer Ian Williams saw his shot Munsef for the first time in three weeks at Sandown on Friday morning, and declared himself impressed with the horse's condition.

"For the first time since we decided to bring him to Australia, the Melbourne Cup now seems very real," Williams said on the Racing Victoria website.

"Naturally we've all heard about the Melbourne Cup and I've read a couple of books about it but now that we've got the horse here fit and ready to run, it's all very exciting."

He credited handler Dawn Oxley with keeping the horse in top shape.

It is William's first-ever visit to Australia and he said the horse looks ready to do well in Tuesday's nation-stopper at Flemington.

Sportingbet has Munsef at 51.00 for the race, with Alcopop the favourite at 5.00, with Viewed on 5.50.

The same bookmaker had marked Efficient as 'unlikely' as of Friday but was still taking bets on the galloper at 8.50, following concerns over a foreleg problem.

The Melbourne Cup is run over 3200m and has a purse of $5.5 million. Bookmakers expect hundreds of millions of dollars to have been bet by Tuesday afternoon.