The horse booked the berth in the feature race after a very close finish in the opening heat of the series last Sunday, which was followed by an unsuccessful protest.

Shadow Pass is part-owned in Tamworth by Tim Varga, who races the seven-year-old gelding along with Eddie Doughan and Matt Hunt. The horse is trained at Central Mangrove by Roy Roots Jnr.

Read also:

Roots trained Jasper Gold to victory in the 2011 Golden Guitar Final.

"And I really like this horse [Shadow Pass] - I think he has got a good chance of winning," he said.

Well-known Sydney reinsman Robbie Morris drove Shadow Pass from the two barrier in the first heat last Sunday.

And after urging the gelding forward, Shadow Pass took the lead in the home straight on the first occasion.

"He raced really good and it was a bit of a tight margin at the finish but I was happy with the horse," said Morris after the win of the Shadow Play-Alesandra Ambrosio gelding.

Shadow Pass recorded the slowest mile rate of the five heats, a 2min 01.4sec effort for 1980m, but Morris was unfazed.

"He could have probably gone a bit harder - he had it pretty easy early in the race. So hopefully he is better for the final," Morris said.

With Shadow Pass leading the field, Maitland reinsman Brad Elder placed the Joe Taffee-trained Tygar for a four-wide run around the final turn.

Shadow Pass, the second favourite at $2.70, held on for a half-head win over Tygar, with the Roots-trained Yayas Hot Heart (Josh Gallagher) 7.5m away third in third place.

"He did run up the track the whole race, which was a bit of a concern," Morris saod. "But he did race as if he was the winner - he was just making it harder on himself."

When the horses returned to scale, Elder lodged a protest - alleging interference over the concluding stages of the race, but stewards dismissed it.