Officials forensically examined this year's crop and described it as a "transition year" and one of "opportunity", but has the Melbourne Cup depth ever looked as thin as 2014?

Case in point could be Sydney Cup hero The Offer, which ended up with a hefty 56.5kg for the Melbourne Cup, an impost greater than what he carried in the Sydney staying feature of the autumn.

It was borne out of the fact there was no defending champion to be weighted for the first time in almost a decade leaving a topweight with only a group 3 win next to its name and an alarmingly low number of horses to have passed the ballot at this stage.

No wonder Racing Victoria's executive general manager – racing, Greg Carpenter, was the first to admit he had his work cut out in allocating the weights for Australia's great race, released on Tuesday.

Yet none of it really surprised Waterhouse, who has a laser-like focus on winning back-to-back cups, headed by The Offer and recent stable acquisition Cafe Society.

On The Offer's impost, Waterhouse said: "It's quite a bit of pudding and I knew he would probably get quite a bit of pudding. They haven't missed him and it's hard to win with that weight.

"Maybe the Sydney Cup was worth so much more money this year they rated it highly, I don't know. It's not like winning the Caulfield Cup and you thought he might have got that sort of penalty if he won the Caulfield Cup.

"You can't change it and you've just got to live with it and hope he's good enough on the day."

Under the Australian rules of racing Carpenter needed to find a 58kg topweight for the Melbourne Cup.

He ended up with Admire Rakti at the head, albeit conceding the Japanese star would have been entitled to significant weight relief in any other renewal. But there's no former champion like Americain, Dunaden or Fiorente to headline the field this year.

Granted, Admire Rakti, already in quarantine in Japan and due to touch down in Australia on Saturday, has excellent lead-up form in the land of the rising sun as he carves out a path made famous by Delta Blues before his 2006 cup win.

But only one group 3 win in 13 starts in stakes company?

"We are in a transition year where we haven't got a returning champion coming back into the race and it's the first time since Makybe Diva won in 2005 the previous year's winner had not been nominated and weighted," Carpenter said. "And we don't have a standout weight-for-age horse like an Eremein or a So You Think nominated.

"Admire Rakti has got 56 [kilograms] in the Caulfield Cup and of the horses nominated for both races he was the highest rated horse. He was the standout, albeit in any other year his natural weight would have been 56 kilos, but he's having to take the 58 [kilograms] as everything goes up two kilos."

The message: the Melbourne Cup is crying out for another star. Could it be Bande, the Japanese star which will join Admire Rakti in Australia, after firming in early Melbourne Cup markets with a 56.5kg handicap?

Even the Europeans again arriving en masse would have been hoping for a little kinder treatment from Carpenter if conditions allowed.

"Absolutely they would have been hoping for less weight," Carpenter said when quizzed on their response to the initial weights being released.

"I made the point Cavalryman [57kg] has won three group races in the northern hemisphere and Red Cadeaux [57kg] has run second previously [twice]. When you're a seasoned horse they would have probably hoped they got less weight than what they ended up with, but it comes back to the 58 topweight rule."

Thankfully, not all the former Melbourne Cup champions have taken their bow. Lloyd Williams' 2012 hero Green Moon will lump 57kg if he lines up on the first Tuesday in November. Stablemate and Caulfield Cup hero Fawkner has the same weight.

The first shipment of Europeans will arrive in Australia on Saturday week after completing quarantine at Newmarket.

Carpenter has forecast in the vicinity of eight internationally-trained horses could make the final field, with last year's Caulfield Cup runner-up Dandino (56.5kg), German star Protectionist (56.5kg) and Side Glance (56.5kg) at the pointy end of the handicaps.

"I think we'll probably get at least eight [in the final field] and the reason for that is we're anticipating we'll probably have six or seven in the Caulfield Cup," Carpenter said.

Roger James' heroine of Sydney's autumn carnival, Silent Achiever, was the highest-weighted mare among the 148 entries remaining with 56.5kg.