O’Lonera kicks off winter at the Valley

cindy alderson
Trainer Cindy Alderson is looking forward to O’Lonera’s winter campaign starting at Mooneey Valley.

Cranbourne trainer Cindy Alderson wishes she had a stable full of horses like O’Lonera.

The winner of almost $525,000 prize money, O’Lonera returns for a winter campaign in the Kate O’Sullivan Mile at Moonee Valley on Saturday.

O’Lonera hasn’t raced since finishing fifth in the Adelaide Cup at Morphettville in March.

“He went to Adelaide and ran a nice race over two miles,” Alderson said.

“He’s had a let-up and seems to be as good as ever and is remarkably resilient.”

Saturday’s race over 1600m is short of O’Lonera’s best but the gelding has been placed in all three outings at Moonee Valley.

He ran third over 1500m at the track in January 2017 when first-up off a break.

“I think the main thing against him on Saturday is he’s never won short of 1850 metres and it’s a bit of a stronger race than he normally contests,” Alderson said.

“But he’s in great order and hopefully he’ll run well.”

Alderson said O’Lonera can be a little finicky.

She said he doesn’t like wet ground while also not appreciating tracks that are too firm.

He also doesn’t like Flemington and for that reason Alderson is aiming O’Lonera at the $150,000 VOBIS Gold Stayers at Caulfield at the end of July, a race he won in 2016.

“At this time of year the city tracks seem to hold up just right for him,” Alderson said.

“So we’ll try and head back to that VOBIS stayers race he won as a three-year-old and he’ll have around four runs into that.

“He doesn’t like Flemington for some reason but I suppose he can’t be good on all of them and he’s exceeded everyone’s expectations of him with over $500,000 in prize money.

“I wish I had a stable full of horses like him.”

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