Only Pago Pago (10th start) and Reisling (11th) have ever won the Slipper with extensive lead-up racing.
Bjorn Baker believes statistics and records are there to be corrected.
"Above all else, I know this horse thrives on racing," he told the Weekend Herald from Sydney.
"He's pretty right for [today's] race and he'll be even better in the Slipper."
Unencumbered's knockers are clearly somewhat heartened by the fact the colt suffered only his second defeat in seven starts when unplaced in the Silver Slipper last start.
"That was simply because of the slow track, which he doesn't like," says Baker.
Baker also doesn't buy into the fact that the colt's two unplaced runs have come at Rosehill, the scene of today's race and also the Golden Slipper.
"The first time there we rode him too handy and the other race was the Silver Slipper. That's not a factor."
Craig Williams will be on board Unencumbered today after the hugely talented Tommy Berry had to forgo the ride and fly to the bedside of his seriously ill twin Nathan, suffering from encephalitis in Singapore.
Tommy Berry rode Unencumbered in a barrier trail and was impressed. "This is a real deal horse."
Bjorn Baker purchased Unencumbered for A$70,000 and has won A$1.8 million with him in a short space of time.
If he wins his next two it will be a while before the tyre-kickers again question Baker's opinions.
Unencumbered will get every opportunity from gate No2 today and bookmakers are taking no chances by installing him the $3.50 favourite, although just ahead of Melbourne colt Jabali, to be ridden by Damien Oliver, at $4. Jabali, prepared by Mick Price, has not won a race, but has looked very good with second placings in each of his three races.
If there is one factor that defines group one jockeys it is confidence. The second is the ability to out-think the opposition.
As Bart Cummings so beautifully and succinctly put it in his tribute to the passing of legendary Roy Higgins last week: "All jockeys can ride - very few of them can think. Higgins could think."
So can James McDonald and that's going to have to be impressively clear today if It's A Dundeel is to beat Fiorente in the A$505,000 Ranvet Stakes.
Of all the pressure races McDonald has ridden in - and there have been plenty - this one stands up there alone. Yes, he was in a pressure situation when he finished second in the Melbourne Cup on Fiorente 17 months ago, but the English stallion had only just arrived in Australia and was feeling his way, a year away from winning his Melbourne Cup.
It's A Dundeel is now owned by an international breeding giant after a multimillion-dollar sale and every group one win like this until his retirement to stud is worth a million or two on top of the stakemoney.
McDonald is surprisingly relaxed about the task - essentially because he has ridden both horses and as we pointed out in yesterday's Herald, It's A Dundeel has the fastest 300m sprint in the field.
"That's the key in these races," said McDonald yesterday. "I know the sprint is there, I just have to make sure I release it at the right time."
This level of weight-for-age racing is dog-eat-dog where second doesn't count, so Oliver, Craig Newitt, Jim Cassidy, Hugh Bowman, Tommy Berry and Nash Rawiller - who you would have riding for you in any group one race in the world - will do anything and everything to ensure McDonald is forced to release that enormous It's A Dundeel sprint when they want him to, not when he wants to. These riders might chat in the jockeys room between races like this, perhaps even nervously joke, but out on the track in this race it will be mortal combat.
Fiorente, predictably because of the weight of Australian money on their champ, is favourite at $2.50 with It's A Dundeel at $2.90.
On big racedays on both sides of the Tasman, It's A Dundeel's trainer Murray Baker can been seen at the track ambling around with almost a disinterested air - totally misleading.
Expect some animation if It's A Dundeel gets over the line first at 6.40pm. "I think I can win," says McDonald.
Go you good thing.
