Why Winx owner has never seen Cox Plate live – and won’t change now

While Tighe and Kepitis are the public faces of the people behind Winx – they’ve conducted countless rounds of media interviews this week alone – Treweeke will watch Winx’s shot at a fourth Cox Plate from the comfort of his own lounge chair. He’s battling vertigo and dizzy spells and won’t make the trip.

It’s not an uncommon thing for him; in fact, it’s been quite lucky.

In more than 50 years of racing horses, the former jackeroo had never seen one of his horses win a race live until Winx came along and he headed to the track for her second start at Rosehill midway through 2014.

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Until then, he jokingly referred to his ongoing interest in thoroughbreds as akin to owning “chase horses rather than racehorses”. It just happens he’s got the best racehorse in the world now, one which he named himself as a nod to the seven-year-old mare’s mother Vegas Showgirl.

“I don’t believe it,” he says. “I still think it’s a dream. Everybody owns her, we don’t own her. She’s Australia’s horse and New Zealand’s too. It would be history making if she could win again. No one has ever won four Cox Plates.”

Winx will start at unbackable odds in the race on Saturday, installed as a $1.22 favourite with BetEasy on Friday as she chases a 29th straight win. She will also become the first horse in Australian racing history to crack the $20 million prize money barrier if she finishes in the first five.

After Winx won her third Cox Plate last year, Treweeke was finally gifted the winning owners’ trophy after Tighe and Kepitis shared the first two.

While Treweeke himself may not be at Moonee Valley, he will have more than 100 family and friends in a trackside marquee dubbed “TreWinx” for the day.

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“There will be a lot of family there, a lot of New Zealand friends and a lot of Australian friends,” Treweeke says. “I would love to be down there, but unfortunately I fell over a couple of times [on Wednesday] so I’m taking it easy. History doesn’t allow me to go down there.”

The only whiff of controversy in an otherwise faultless Cox Plate build-up for the Winx team was the outspoken comments of British TV host Matt Chapman, who questioned whether Australia’s darling of the turf had been only beating “moderate horses”.

It prompted Winx’s usually uber-cool trainer Chris Waller to claim Chapman was “a bit of a dickhead for saying it really” on Melbourne radio afterwards.

“They reckon she’s overrated, do they? I’d like to see her better her own track record just to throw it in this Pommy’s face,” Treweeke laughs. “And I reckon she might be hard to beat.”