Cunning Fox back jumping

[Wandering Eyes]

Syndicator Joe O’Neill has enjoyed the results over summer with his two-year-olds, but it’s the prospect of having a champion hurdler with The Cunning Fox (NZ) (Reliable Man) which is whetting his appetite for the future.

O’Neill watched the undefeated jumper trial at Cranbourne on Thursday when he finished second in a 2400m hurdle trial to Dashing Willoughby.

“He trialled brilliantly at Cranbourne on Thursday. We thought he was extraordinary,” O’Neill said.

The Patrick and Michelle Payne-trained jumper won his three hurdle starts last season, with his final win coming in the J.J. Houlahan Hurdle at Ballarat.

O’Neill said The Cunning Fox will return to jumps racing in the M.J Bourke Hurdle at Pakenham on Sunday, April 13, which will be his lead-in to the Galleywood Hurdle at Warrnambool on April 30.

“He’s a very good jumper. A lot of people think he’s the best jumper around. He won his first two hurdle races easily and then at Ballarat he wasn’t suited by the rock-hard track and he still won,” he said.

The Cunning Fox resumed from a spell with an eighth placing at Sandown on February 26 and O’Neill said he will have another run on the flat before Pakenham.

Meanwhile, O’Neill said his smart Tom Dabernig-trained two-year-old filly Cavalry Girl has gone to the spelling paddock after her disappointing seventh behind Shining Smile in the Festival Stakes at Flemington.

“She did a great job running second in the Geelong Diamond and then winning at Flemington before she got that cold before the Inglis Millennium. She pulled up a little bit short the other day,” he said.

“She’ll have a couple of months off. We’re in no hurry to get her back.”

He said she could even be back to contest two-year-old races at the end of the season.

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