Just days after Green Moon was successful in the 2012 Melbourne Cup, a float arrived at the property and a mare and foal quickly came down the ramp that made an instant impact on Waddell and her staff.

The mare and foal had been sent to the property to be weaned and then prepared for the important yearling sales in New Zealand a year later.

But while the young colt foal caught the attention of all on the property, Waddell well remembers "the quirkiness" of the youngster.

On Saturday morning, Waddell and her family will fly into Melbourne to see how that once-quirky foal has progressed to be one of the main chances in the $3.1 million Caulfield Cup.

Humidor has come a long, long way since the days when many doubted the strong colt would reach any heights.

"We have a lot of young horses that come to our property to be weaned and looked after and eventually they would either go to the sales or go straight into work with a trainer," Waddell said.

"Humidor was a foal with a difference. To look at him you couldn't see a better type. Strong body, good legs and you wouldn't get a horse more athletic mover. On the downside, however, he could do so much wrong.

"He wasn't like normal foals who, from the time they are born, are using every experience as a learning one. From drinking from their mother then eating hard feed and on, the learning process goes on.

"He didn't adapt to that way. One day he would be in a pack of foals biting and kicking and then the next, far away in a corner not wanting to be looked at," she said.

After Humidor was taken from his mother, it was slow progress with painstaking hours of teaching.

"We would work day in day out spending so much time with him running our hands over his ears, neck and flanks. I'd say to one of my best horsemen at my property, Tim Welch, that we're really making progress. We've put two weeks work into him and suddenly we'd come back in the morning and we'd be back to scratch again.

"You know, at the end of the day we would watch him and for all the things he did wrong he had a striking eye. An eye that was saying to us I want to do the best I can for you, just trust me," she said.

Humidor was sent to be broken in, however, two weeks later was sent back with a note that he's was "totally unbreakable".

Veteran trainers of the past who received that information might have had the horse euthanised, believing that the horse was too much of a risk to the safety of people.

"The owners of the horse rang me and asked what did I think and I said don't give up. There's something very special there amongst all of that behaviour. If we could win him over and get his trust I think he'll be worth the effort," she said.

In a move to quell the horse's difficult manners it was decided to geld Humidor, an operation that usually completely settles a wayward racehorse. However, the opposite happened and Humidor became worse than ever after his de-sexing.

A new horse-breaker was invited to break in Humidor and after a number of weeks the horse was being ridden.

Humidor returned then to Waddell to put the finishing touches on the horse and he was then sent to be trained by Johno Benner and his training partner Hollie Wynyard.

"I can tell you that the work Johno and Hollie put in to him was extraordinary. He really warmed to Hollie, I don't know if it's the woman's touch, but she managed to put all that trust into him," she said.

Just like Waddell, Benner and Wynyard worked long hours tinkering with the horse, overcoming issues problem by problem.

"We always knew Humidor had a hell of a lot of raw talent," Benner said on Friday from New Zealand.

There were some lapses in behaviour - including having to be scratched from the Breeze Up Sales in New Zealand when the horse had one of his "off days".

The New Zealand-based have always believed in the horse, but they relented 18 months ago and agreed to sell some of the holdings in Humidor to an Australian group of owners.

Form experts and bloodstock agents in New Zealand had been licking their lips in anticipation at the heights the horse would reach. They, of course, were unaware of the stayer's background.

However, the next step in Humidor's life was to be flown to Australia to join the hugely successful training establishment of Darren Weir, who was naturally excited when reading his form profile.

In starts in New Zealand, to avoid being upset by crowds, Humidor was taken straight to the barriers, bypassing the mounting yard. But on his first Australian start he momentarily became upset after being spooked by a punter before staff managed to placate him.

Staff at Weir's Ballarat and Warrnambool operations knew any lapse in temperament could take the strong, long-striding gelding back to scratch and they have worked slowly at winning the trust of this son of Teofilo.

Waddell knows all about hard work in the search for sporting success. She represented New Zealand at the world championships in hurdles and was twice an Olympic competitor at rowing. And she knows that it has taken a lot of work and patience to get Humidor to the point where he heads into Saturday's Caulfield Cup with two Australian group one wins under his belt.

"We're flying in to see him," she said. "What we did learn from all the time that he was at our place was that while he could be wayward he could feel no pain whatever happened to him. His mother is the most delightful mare to handle and his half brother is an angel."

Humidor still can't be described the same way, but those who are up against him on Saturday at Caulfield will know that they've had a race by just looking at that eye that tells so much about his trust and courage.