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By Ray Hickson

Trainer Brett Cavanough would like to get back on the right foot with unbeaten filly Zumbo at Randwick on Saturday and find out if she could be a leftfield Kosciuszko contender.

Trainer Brett Cavanough (Pic: Bradley Photos).

Zumbo was meant to make her TAB Highway Handicap (1200m) debut two weeks ago but became cast in the stalls and was a late scratching, forcing her back to the trials and frustrating Cavanough’s plans.

However, what he saw in the trial two days later encouraged him.

“It didn’t put me on the right leg I wanted to be on, I wanted to test her in that race and go from there,’’ he said.

“She trialled as good as Compelling Truth, she went back and sat three deep and worked home and gathered Messara’s filly (Social Circle) up. That horse came out and bolted in and they’re raving about her and the Kosciuszko.

“Saturday will tell me where we are going anyway.”

The three-year-old kicked off her career winning at Grafton in January then reappeared to take out the Miss Finland at Muswellbrook in May.

Cavanough’s 2020 Kosciuszko winner It’s Me won a Highway in September on her way to victory and while he’s not speaking about Zumbo in her terms he said she works as well as anything in his stable.

“She’s never done anything wrong, she’s got a good turn of foot,’’ he said.

“It’s the perfect opportunity not to bust her but test her at the same time. With the facts and the figures on Saturday night against the Furious we’ll be able to rate her.

“She’ll just have to deliver now.”

Braith Nock partnered the filly in her second win and latest trial but Tommy Berry has the ride on Zumbo, $4.40 with TAB on Thursday and $51 in The Kosciuszko, and Cavanough said he’ll leave it up to the jockey to plot his own course.

“She got a fright in the gates the other day and that wasn’t ideal, but Braith trialled her on the Monday and she was okay and she got her confidence back and trialled well,’’ he said.

“Where she’s going to be I don’t know, I’ll leave it to Tommy. If he gives her a push she’ll go forward but he can go where he likes on her.”

While all eyes are on the filly, Cavanough said Saratoga Power can hold his own in the Highway.

“I think he needs a firm track even though he’s not the best conformed horse,’’ he said.

“A couple of his runs on the wet have left me questioning. Anna (Roper) will give him a squeeze, he’ll be right there. I think he’s a confidence horse.”

A win by lightly raced mare Chidiac in the Precise Air Handicap (1100m) will have Cavanough talking Kosciuszko for her and what he can say is he’s finally happy with how she’ll present.

That’s a rap given she’s already won four of her five starts with her only defeat coming in a strong Highway back in February.

Cavanough said he’s scratched the mare a couple of times from recent heavy tracks but takes heart from her place in the market, $5 second favourite on Thursday. Chidiac is also on the $51 line in the Kosciuszko market.

“She’s just got country form going into a ratings race, maybe I could have placed her better in midweek,’’ he said.

“She went to places like Quirindi and Armidale and they were just barrier trials for money trying to get her right.

Zumbo runs second in a Scone trial on August 25

“When she was winning those races she was half right, she was fat and she’d had foot abscesses.

“She’s there to put her hand up and see if she is a Kosciuszko horse.”

All the fields, form and replays for Saturday’s Randwick meeting