A trip to Ashburton on Thursday will be an important step towards next month’s Gr.3 Winter Cup (1600m) for exciting three-year-old Riviera Rebel.

The son of Pure Champion has hardly put a foot wrong this season, winning two and placing in five of his nine starts, including a placing in the Listed Southland Guineas (1600m).

He has run in the money in his last four outings and trainer Graham Eade is hoping he can continue his purple patch of form in the Green Fencing (1600m) at Ashburton on Thursday.

Eade is looking forward to seeing how his charge handles the long trek north from his Riverton base, and said Thursday’s outcome will be a deciding factor in whether they press on for the Winter Cup.

“He is just getting better with age,” Eade said. “It is his first time away and if everything goes well, he should be thereabouts.

“I could have put him in the three-year-old race, but I opted to go for this race because it will probably be a bit stronger, and I wanted to see where he was at.

“We are still humming and hawing (about the Winter Cup), but I just don’t want to be too hard on him in his three-year-old prep.

“If he comes through this and we think he is capable, we will probably have a crack.”

He will be joined in the float trip north from Riverton by stablemate Ataahua Pipedream who will contest the Gallagher Insurance (1200m).

The Rip Van Winkle gelding was victorious two starts back at Ascot Park before finishing ninth at Oamaru last month.

“He is quite capable,” Eade said. “On his day he has got a good turn of foot and is hard to beat. He just makes up his own mind, if he feels like it, he can run a bit.

“We don’t know what happened last start, whether it was the track. He is a funny horse, he likes Invercargill and Riverton, but he picks his tracks.”

Eade has won five races to date this season and more than $150,000 in prizemoney, and he is excited about his stable’s prospects next term.

“We only train a few and it has been quite a good season,” he said. “I have got The Tui Toiler, he has recently come to the barn as Stephen Blair-Edie has finished up training and he has handed him off to us. We will just take him one step at a time.”