Trainer Steve Tregea’s outstanding level of expertise in his profession somehow seemingly remains one of the best kept secrets in Queensland, despite the fact that the stable has had a string of successes over a long period of time and a strike rate that is right up there with the best of them.
Tregea brought the lightly raced, four-year-old gelding Incentivise to Eagle Farm with the son of Shamus Award looking to extend his winning sequence having taken care of business to secure a hat trick of wins in his previous three starts. He had also won four of his last five starts.
Those runs clearly hinted at Incentivise having superior potential but few people, including Steve Tregea himself, expected to see the nine-length demolition job Incentivise did on his opposition at Eagle Farm … opposition that included four last start winners and representatives from the likes of some high-profile stables in the form of Chris Waller, Tony Gollan and John Thompson.
“We thought he might make a nice stayer in time, and he has been improving nicely along the way,” said Tregea.
“I wasn’t that confident. I thought it was a rise in class and I thought it would be interesting to see how he goes.
“He was just having the run at Eagle Farm to see … number one, if he was up to Saturday class … and secondly, just to give him a final run before his main target for now which is the Stayers’ Final at Ipswich in two weeks time.
“He passed well on both of those scores.”
When he won the first of his three-in-a-row successes, Incentivise shed his Maiden ticket by a very comfortable 3.35 lengths at the Sunshine Coast over 1600m.
Incentivise then went straight to a Class 2 Handicap over 1790m, at his home base of Toowoomba, in which he beat Isabella Spring by 0.80 lengths before romping home over 2150m, again at Toowoomba, again beating Isabella’s Spring … but this time by a whopping 7.30 lengths. (Isabella Spring further franked that form by winning at her next start.
And then it was on to this latest massacre.
“Not many win four in a row and not many win by nine lengths at any time during their careers.
“You’ve got to be happy with that,” said Tregea.
