Niccanova is the horse Steve Tregea most looks forward to seeing when he gets out of bed each morning.
The talented gelding rocketed into Queensland Guineas contention with his fast-finishing win in yesterday's Gr. 3 Fred Best Classic (1400m) at Eagle Farm. He has now won four of his five starts and finished third in the other.
Tregea has been swamped with calls to sell Niccanova to Hong Kong but so far has resisted those offers.
"I decided not to sell him because you've got to have a reason to get out of bed," he said. "When he won his first start at the Sunshine Coast we had plenty of offers and then again after he won at Doomben, but even though the money would pay a lot of bills I turned them all down."
With an eye on this year's carnival, Tregea decided to aim Niccanova at the Fred Best Classic as a lead-up to the Gr. 2 Queensland Guineas (1600m) at Eagle Farm on June 10.
"I thought today if he raced well and handled the track we could go to the Guineas and if not take him back to the farm and give him a few weeks off and set him for a couple of QTIS races in July," the Toowoomba trained explained. "Now that he's won it looks like we'll head to the Guineas."
Niccanova is not nominated for the Gr. 1 Stradbroke Handicap and Tregea has ruled out paying a late entry fee. Tregea admitted he gave serious thought to scratching Niccanova because of the heavy track.
That rating had already forced the withdrawal of several runners including Kiwi stablemates Heroic Valour and Hall Of Fame, and ironically led to Niccanova gaining a start after originally being the third emergency.
"With the query on the track I kept looking and looking at it and telling myself that the wide barrier wouldn't matter on the heavy going," he said. "I was nearly going to scratch him but in the end I thought it was worth rolling the dice."
Jockey Jeff Lloyd praised the courage of his runner-up Sylpheed, while Corey Brown said third place-getter I Thought So had untapped potential but was not letting down as well as he should in races.
