Second coming of Phar Lap? Incentivise draws comparisons to greats

Amid an air of despair during the Great Depression, Melburnians turned to a racehorse – and one race in particular – for inspiration. The year was 1929, and Phar Lap was the name on everyone’s lips.

A progressive stayer on the rise with a ton of expectation, the three-year-old Phar Lap arrived at Flemington on the first Tuesday of November as an even-money favourite for the great race, having won the Rosehill Guineas, AJC Derby, Craven Plate and VRC Derby at his four lead-up runs.

Back then, crowds filled the racecourse to catch a glimpse of the Big Red in his first Melbourne Cup, where he finished third; the race wouldn’t be televised for close to another 50 years.

Fast-forward to 2021, and while crowds will be limited to no more than 10,000 due to coronavirus restrictions, this year’s Cup comes at a similarly vulnerable time when the community is searching for hope and recovery.

And the stage has been set for another Australasian-bred galloper who has taken all before him en route to his first Melbourne Cup.

Incentivise is hardly the household name Phar Lap had become by the time he ventured overseas to America to take on the world before his ill-fated demise splashed racing on the front page of every paper.

But Incentivise’s rapid rise through the grades, out of the obscurity of country Queensland, somewhat resembles the early career of Australian racing’s most recognised legend, as Australians again turn to a racehorse to lift the mood during a once-in-a-lifetime crisis.

Phar Lap finished no better than seventh in his first four attempts on the racetrack, while Incentivise too had a rocky start to his career, finishing no better than sixth – beaten by a combined 24.85 lengths – at his first three runs.

It wasn’t until Phar Lap stepped out over nine furlongs (1800 metres) that he started to show his connections a glimpse of his athleticism, and Incentivise has followed that mould in delivering his potential over the longer trips.

Since Incentivise’s maiden victory over a mile on the Sunshine Coast on April 11, the bay gelding has won a further eight races consecutively, including a demolition job in the Caulfield Cup, to capture the imagination of racing fans and punters alike.

His most recent outing – a 3.5-length romp – has left him a $2.80 favourite for Tuesday’s big race.

Phar Lap had three goes at winning the Melbourne Cup, finishing third in 1929 at $2 as a three-year-old – just three days after his Derby victory – before romping to victory in 1930 as a $1.73 fancy. He failed at his third attempt, carrying a record weight of 68 kilograms.

By the time he reached the Cup at his second attempt, he had claimed some of racing’s most coveted weight-for-age prizes, including that year’s Cox Plate. Phar Lap’s wins on all four days of Cup week of 1930 is iconic, a feat that will never be repeated, let alone attempted.

Phar Lap was a favourite going into the Melbourne Cup in 1929, as reporting on Monday November 4 of that year shows (right). But Nightmarch (left) took the victory.Credit: The Age

“Phar Lap was the horse that gave Australians hope when they couldn’t find hope anywhere else,” says Greg Carpenter, Racing Victoria’s executive general manager of racing and arguably the country’s most authoritative racing voice.

Carpenter, who as Victorian racing’s chief handicapper was tasked with penalising Incentivise for his Caulfield Cup win last month, believes racing’s newest poster boy will join some of the sport’s immortals if he wins on Tuesday.

“He’s also got a comparable background to Bernborough and Rising Fast,” says Carpenter, who is also chairman of the Australian Racing Museum.

“Bernborough [in the 1940s] was banned from racing in Brisbane until he was an older horse. When he was finally allowed, his meteoric rise – like Incentivise, through Brisbane and then through Melbourne and Sydney – [made him] one of the greatest of all time.

“Rising Fast [in the 1950s] came unheralded from New Zealand, won one race during the Queensland winter carnival and then swept all before him in the spring of ’54.

“Northerly [in the early 2000s], West Australian racing was out on its feet and he reaffirmed the fact West Australians could come to the states and beat the best.”

While Europeans have raided the great race over the past 20 years, this year’s edition will more closely resemble a traditional Melbourne Cup field.

Imports Spanish Mission and Twilight Payment, who won the Cup last year, appear to be Incentivise’s main dangers, considering how clinically he took care of his local rivals in the Caulfield Cup.

But when history is thrown into the discussion, Incentivise must achieve a task only the greats of the turf have accomplished.

Ethereal (2001) was the last horse to win the Caulfield Cup and Melbourne Cup double, which has only been done 11 times. But Ethereal won the great race with 52 kilograms. Incentivise will attempt to do it with 57.

The last before Ethereal to do the double was Might And Power in 1997; naturally, comparisons have been drawn between Incentivise and the latter.

Might And Power flogged his opponents in the 1997 Caulfield Cup by 7.5 lengths, and received a 3.5-kilogram penalty from the handicapper, before narrowly holding off Doriemus in the Cup with 56 kilograms.

Those two wins alone weighted Might And Power out of handicap racing, and he went on to prove himself a weight-for-age great with wins in races such as the Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the Cox Plate. That’s the path that beckons for Incentivise beyond Tuesday.

What Might And Power never achieved that Incentivise already has, in his short career to date, is a group-1, weight-for-age, mile win. While that might reflect negatively on Australia’s current-day weight-for-age stocks, it also highlights the class and versatility of the sport’s newest star.

Owner Brae Sokolski believes Incentivise has the ability to capture the imagination of the general public, not only those in the racing bubble, by completing his “picket fence” of wins in the Cup.

Had the horse lost in the Makybe Diva or Turnbull Stakes, but won the Caulfield Cup, he’d still be a Melbourne Cup favourite. But he’d be just another good or great horse, aiming to win the great race.

“Obviously the Melbourne Cup is the singular race that is part of the fabric of Australian society, not just part of a racing calendar, so any horse that wins a Melbourne Cup in some ways becomes familiar to the general public, at least for that brief moment in the sun,” Sokolski said.

“But with Incentivise, it won’t merely be by winning the cups double like Ethereal did.

“The story of Incentivise is so magnetic and resonates so powerfully with Australian culture, in terms of this underdog, bred and raised in Toowoomba, rising from maiden grade to win a Melbourne Cup in the space of 12 months. That alone is an incredible narrative.

“But it’s also the way the horse races in terms of decimating fields.”

Incentivise also has to defy the 57 kilograms allotted to him by Carpenter following his Caulfield Cup obliteration.

The only horse in the past 40 years to win with that weight was three-peat champion Makybe Diva, who won her third carrying 58 kilograms. She had just 51 kilograms in 2003 for her first victory after running fourth in that year’s Caulfield Cup.

Makybe Diva crosses the line to win her first Melbourne Cup, in 2003.Credit: Paul Rovere

Of the 11 horses to complete the Caulfield Cup double, only Rising Fast has carried 57 kilograms or more to win the Melbourne Cup. Rising Fast, as mentioned by Carpenter, is one of the sport’s greats; his cups double was split with a Cox Plate victory in that spring of 1954.

Carpenter said Incentivise “has a profile of trajectory along the lines” of any of those past champions, “and as we look back in another decade he could sit alongside those horses in the pantheon of racing in Australia”.

This century, legendary status is restricted to perhaps only Makybe Diva, Black Caviar and Winx, from an Australian perspective.

“As far as the profile of the horse is concerned and what he could do for racing, I think he could be in that rarefied company,” Sokolski said.

“And the other layer is, racing always seems to produce a certain champion that can bring hope and triumph and a sense of a purpose for people amidst difficult times, and we are still in the midst of a crisis – a very different crisis to what we experienced during the Depression and Phar Lap, but that’s not the only example where a horse has risen to heights to inspire people.

“It could really be a defining moment come Tuesday.”

Sports news, results and expert commentary. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.