Jonjo O'Neill, who produced Legal Right fit and ready to win the £80,000 Tripleprint Gold Cup on Saturday, pulled off another fine piece of training when Clifton Fox ran out an impressive winner of the Tote top of The North Novices' Hurdle at Newcastle yesterday.

Legal Right is a `virtual cripple' every day while Clifton Fox, winner of the Cambridgeshire and the November Handicap on the Flat, has not been seen on a racecourse since winning that latter race over three years ago.

He was a market drifter, but was ridden with plenty of confidence by Richard Johnson and striding into the lead after jumping the third last beat the fancied Lord Of The Sky easing up by four lengths.

O'Neill trains Clifton Fox for the legendary J P McManus who loves to have runners at the Cheltenham Festival, but the former said: "That looked alright on paper, the second is a lovely horse but is a chasing type, ours is more of a Flat horse and has a bit of class.

"The trouble is he never shows anything at home and Jeremy Glover who used to train him said he never had done! I think he should get two and a half miles but we will let him do the talking."

Johnson, whose only previous success on the course had been in an amateur riders' race about four years ago, completed a double when Shagreen made a successful debut over fences in the Renate Services Novices' Chase.

Mary Reveley reached the halfcentury for the season when Pretty Obvious, well ridden by Alan Dempsey, got the better of Fiori on the run in to win the Northern Racing Juvenile Novices' Hurdle.

The Saltburn trainer said: "The horses are running well and long may it continue. Staying is what Pretty Obvious does and she is game."

And continue it did when Mrs Reveley and Dempsey doubled up when Supreme Fortune floored the odds-on Dee Pee Tee Cee in the Gosforth Park Handicap Hurdle.