Glen Boss is a lot closer to the end of his career than the beginning – and as close as he’s ever been to winning a jockeys’ championship.
Boss goes into Saturday’s Flemington meeting with 99 wins for the racing year and seems destined to ride at least one winner from a full book of eight rides.
For the man who has done what no jockey has ever done, winning three successive Melbourne Cups courtesy of Makybe Diva, the prospect of winning a metropolitan riders’ premiership is being taken seriously.
Boss, 43, is focusing almost entirely on Melbourne, declaring himself unavailable for interstate rides.
He has also pushed back minor surgery on a knee until he has the Melbourne title wrapped up.
“It’s a bit of a balancing act,” Boss said.
“I need to have the knee done but I don’t want to do it too soon.
“And I don’t want to wait too long either because I need to be fit for the spring racing.”
Boss is planning to have the “clean-up” procedure in the second half of July, and in the meantime he is more keen than ever to ride winners.
He comes into the Flemington meeting off a treble at Sandown on Wednesday and with strong chances of adding to his 64 metropolitan wins and increasing the 24-win lead he has over Luke Nolen.
The jockey who began his career in country Queensland and moved from Brisbane to Sydney and then Melbourne, is only one win shy of the $9.215 million prize money record set by Damien Oliver in 2001-2002.
If betting moves are any guide, Boss’s best chance comes early with Miss Steele who has been backed from $8 to $3.50 in the Victorian Carbine Club Plate.
He is also aboard That’s The One in the Straight Six and Taxi Joe in the Andrew Ramsden Stakes.
