Although short on years with her name at the gate of her Warwick Farm base, Cunningham is an accomplished horsewoman with a wealth of experience behind her.
Born into racing, the now 28-year-old worked as champion trainer Peter Moody's
protégé entrusted with running his Sydney stables for four years, gleaning valuable
first-hand experience preparing horses for the tough Sydney circuit and has
also worked for the likes of Gai Waterhouse, Joe Pride and Bjorn Baker.Having only opened their doors in May, t he stable ended 2017 with 10 winners from just 45 starters for an impressive winning strike rate of 23% and place strike rate of 49%.
In September the favourable predicament arose where the team's 10 in work at the time were fully subscribed and with new owners knocking on the door, Cunningham looked to secure a horse up and running to meet the demand and help build her profile.
Searching online was the obvious choice, leading to Sacred Edge who was for sale on gavelhouse.com where Champion Trainer Chris Waller regularly offers up tried horses from his team that may not be meeting their owner's metro aspirations.
After a discussion between Cunningham and partner Jason Collett, who had ridden Sacred Edge in a trial and against him on race day, they put a value on him and secured him for $23,000.
Off the back of a promising first up fourth at Canberra, Sacred Edge was second up at Orange on Saturday and ate up the ground under Rory Hutchings to win his maiden, notably completing the stable's first race-day double, a remarkable achievement having only been in operation six months.
As demand dictates, Cunningham will be looking to add more horses to her team at the upcoming yearling sales and online when the opportunities present themselves "I'm starting to get good support but you need winners at the right times to make it happen and leading into the sales it's good to have the likes of Sacred Edge doing that job for us."
Cunningham's gavelhouse.com success comes off the back of fellow young Warwick Farm-based trainer Richard Litt's double metro success with Ashkannd, a $9,000 purchase off the site.
The latest gavelhouse.com Australia auction saw the popularity of racehorses again to the fore with the top price fetched of $27,750 for Northern Charm.
Six other horses on the night made in excess of $6,000 with the site outperforming its counterparts on this count as the site continues to gain popularity with Australian buyers and sellers alike.
