The Steven Tregea trained Incentivise, who has proved to be something of a sensation after winning his last three starts by a combined margin of 25.8 lengths, will be looking to extend his impressive winning sequence to six straight wins when he takes on eight rivals in the Group 3 Tattersall’s Cup over 2400m at Eagle Farm on Saturday.
Incentivise is backing up after his demolition job on the opposition in last week’s Provincial Stayers Final at Ipswich and it will also be his third start in a month which has seen his rapid climb to prominence … to the extent that a fifty percent interest in the son of Shamus Award was sold to high-profile owners Bra Sokolski and Ozzie Kheir prior to the Ipswich start.
Plans have already been announced for Incentivise to move from Tregea (who retains an ownership stake in the horse) to Peter Moody at the end of his current preparation in order to target the bigger staying races later this year with Sokolski stressing that the move was not based on any belief that Moody could do a better job with Incentivise, but rather a common sense move to allowed the horse to have an established base close to where he would be competing.
But, for now, it is a case of first things first, with Incentivise’s first Group 3 challenge awaiting the four-year-old … and who better to provide a bit of background in the lead-up to the race than jockey Anthony Allen who has partnered Incentivise in five of his eight career starts and who has been in the saddle for four of the gelding’s five wins.
“It makes your job a lot easier when you get a nice horse like that underneath you,” acknowledged Allen.
“Early days he had a lot to learn … and he is still learning and getting better and better with every start. He’s got that big an engine. He doesn’t realise how good he is at the moment.
“When he goes out there … he floats a lot. It’s hard to explain but he’ll be floating and you’ll be trying to keep him focussed but, when you ask him, he really goes through his gears and he’s got that massive stride which makes up so much ground.
“He is putting on a bit of a show like a good horse but, like Steve (Tregea) said, he hasn’t beaten anything special at the moment. It will be interesting when something at the same sort of level as him takes him on, it will be really good to see how things pan out.”
While it can be accepted as a general point that there Incentivise hasn’t been beating any champions, the fact that Happy Go Plucky, who Incentivise beat by 9.00 lengths in his penultimate start, came out and won the Listed Ipswich Cup at his next start, does put Incentivise’s performances in a further positive light.
Allen has won ‘a handful of Listed races’ but he has never won a Group race and Saturday’s Group 3 gives him a chance to tick that box … but Allen has his own perspective on that win … should it happen.
“I’ll be feeling like he won the Group 3, not me,” said Allen. “To me it is just the excitement of being able to ride him.
“I don’t really feel any pressure … certainly there is none from the stable. If anything, it comes from all of the publicity Incentivise has attracted but, other than that, not really.
“Riding the best horse in the race gives you more confidence than pressure.”
“I’m happy that he is going south after this preparation,” said Allen. “He has got bigger races to win down there.
“I’ll be rapt to see how he goes … and (Allen’s parting shot) … if they can keep me on him, even better!”
Incentivise has continued to shorten in 2021 Caulfield Cup betting where he is now a $26 chance with Neds.
