NOT THE FIRST TIME THAT LUNAR FOX WAS OVERLOOKED

By Graham Potter | Tuesday, March 2, 2021

You could say the horse that practically no-one wanted in the betting for the Group 1 Australian Guineas is used to being overlooked.

Lunar Fox had them rewriting the record books after Saturday’s big race win as the Paul Preusker trained runner became the longest priced Group 1 winner in Australian racing history when flooring the opposition in a rousing finish, striking at a starting price of $301.

For Travis and Rebecca Kelly of Kelly Thoroughbreds the result was an outcome to celebrate.

The Kelly’s bred Lunar Fox and the colt’s win elevated their status from small-time breeder to Group 1 winning breeder.

Rebecca Kelly, who trains at Sale, reflected on their breeding success story when talking to racing.com.

‘My husband Travis purchased the mare Grant’s Moon in foal to Foxwedge,” said Kelly. “We took her home and foaled her down.

“We offered Lunar Fox for sale at the weanling sale at first with a reserve on him there. He didn’t make the reserve we wanted, so we had to take him home.

“Then he did make the Premier … but there was not a lot of interest there … so we took him home.

‘We were thinking of racing him ourselves, but we didn’t get a lot of interest from other people to come in with him, so we thought we would take one more punt at the Vobis sale seeing as we had other horses going there.

“He had really furnished into a nice horse. After the Premier he had a month out and came back again looking quite nice … and Terry and Karina O’Sullivan purchased him from there.”

While the Australian Guineas win was something to celebrate, the connections of Lunar Fox have been handed another big day to look forward to after Lunar Fox was announced as one of the wildcard entries for the upcoming $5 million All-Star Mile.

That is a star-studded line-up and the chances are Lunar Fox will once again find himself more in the shadows than the spotlight in the build-up for the big race.

Lunar Fox already has his place in the record books … but given that quality performance in the Australian Guineas landing another ‘surprise’ blow cannot be ruled out of the question.

Either way, Lunar Fox looks set to add another chapter to what has already been an eventful story.