Niccanova to chase Bernborough Handicap

Sunday 22 December 2019, 3:00pm

Toowoomba trainer Steve Tregea will closely monitor Niccanova this week before backing him up in the Listed Bernborough Handicap at Eagle Farm.

The $200,000 Bernborough is regarded as the grand final for 1600m-horses in the summer and Tregea won it last year with Bergerac.

Niccanova won the Listed Brisbane Handicap (1600m) on December 7 and Tregea dropped him back in distance to run in the Listed Falvelon Quality (1200m) on Saturday.

He was at the tail of the field until the home straight where he ran on strongly to finish fourth.

Tregea has always considered Niccanova was best at distances around the 1400-1600m mark.

Niccanova's best run was a third in the Queensland Guineas at 1600m but he has won twice in black-type races at 1400m and 1350m.

Tregea ran him on Saturday so it would not be three weeks between his Brisbane Handicap win and the Bernborough Handicap.

"He has backed up in seven days before and gone well. Provided he does well this week he will run," Tregea said.

James Orman who will again ride Niccanova, has a special affinity for the gelding.

He won his first Group race on Niccanova in the 2017 Fred Best Classic and has won two other black-type races on him.

The forecast of rain in Brisbane this week would be a help to Niccanova who is a noted wet track horse.

But the new-look Eagle Farm is playing fast with three course records and a class record run on Saturday.

As it showed last week, the track can take a lot of rain and race as a good surface several hours later.

– AAP

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »