It will be a year on Saturday since Rekindled Interest won his last race, but rather than being troubled by the length of the horse's losing run trainer Jim Conlan is focusing on the positives.

Rekindled Interest runs in the Group Two Dato Tan Chin Nam Stakes (1600m) on Saturday, a race he won 12 months ago and one which enhanced his status as a Moonee Valley specialist.

"He loves this track, everyone knows that," Conlan said.

"Every time he comes here he runs well and I'm pretty sure he'll run well on Saturday."

Rekindled Interest galloped at the Valley on Tuesday morning, pleasing both his trainer and his new jockey Damien Oliver.

For Oliver the familiarisation exercise was as inspirational as it was educational.

"After that I'd be happy to stick with him all spring," Oliver said.

Rekindled Interest has scored two of his three wins at the Valley, but it was his luckless third in last year's Cox Plate that lifted his profile.

The Cox Plate is again his spring target and Conlan believes the five-year-old is going as well now as he was a year ago.

"He's pretty much the same, I'd just like to see him tighten up and I think today's gallop will do that," he said.

Despite Conlan's confidence, Rekindled Interest goes into Saturdays' race with significantly inferior form to last season when he had finished a first-up second in the Aurie's Star Handicap (1200m) at Flemington and was fourth in the Memsie Stakes (1400m) at Caulfield.

This year he missed his intended seasonal debut and then ran a disappointing 10th in the Memsie.

Rekindled Interest has again been set for the Cox Plate and Conlan is keeping a trick up his sleeve in an attempt to encourage the horse to produce his best in the weight-for-age feature.

He said Rekindled Interest was likely to follow the same program as last year and run in the Group One Turnbull Stakes (2000m) at Flemington three weeks from Saturday.

"After he's had one 2000-metre race, which he'll probably have between Saturday and the Cox Plate, he just loses a little bit of his zip so I put the blinkers on after that," he said.