The former Group 1 winning jockey celebrated his first professional win when Costa Maya streaked away to take the third race of the day.

Only hours later, Sentimentalist, ridden by Stawell-based jockey-trainer Linda Meech, blew away the pack to claim the $63,000 Stuart McGregor Stawell Gold Cup.

Pegus took over training of Sentimentalist and Costa Maya last week, after former trainers Terry and Karina O'Sullivan were disqualified on cobalt-related charges.

"It's good to win those races, especially when you're just starting training and I can't thank Terry O'Sullivan enough and all the boys in the horse for sending him my way," Pegus told racing.com after the race.

"We're just slowly building the team, and we've been fortunate enough that we've got some nice owners.

"I haven't had many runners so far, I've got a team of unraced horses to come, so hopefully things can only improve."

Sentimentalist started the race paying $8 and settled into an even tempo at the front alongside fellow Stawell hopeful Tre Dieci.

Dane Smith-trained Tre Dieci, ridden by Horsham's Dean Yendall, led for most of the race but was left lacking on the home straight when Meech guided Sentimentalist to a comfortable 3.5 length win.

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Tre Dieci finished second, followed by pre-race favourite Skelm, trained by Terry Kelly.

"I was very happy when she (Meech) sat outside the leader going past the post first time and then, watching him going down the back, I thought, 'he's going to take a power of beating from there'," Pegus said.

Pegus rode almost 1000 winners as a jockey and only had his first starter as a trainer in November last year.

Pegus celebrated his first career win in January when Veraj, won a maiden race at the Yea picnics meet.

On the day, Dane Smith celebrated wins for San Remo and Good Offa in race eight and nine respectively, while Horsham trainer Paul Preusker's Vividredsky took out race four to mark a successful meet for Wimmera trainers.