Zipping Classic: Glen Boss snares ride on Melbourne Cup flop Surprise Baby
Fresh from winning the VRC Sprint Classic on Bivouac, Glen Boss will stay in Melbourne for another weekend to ride Melbourne Cup flop Surprise Baby.
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Earlier this year, Glen Boss unsuccessfully chased the Melbourne Cup ride on Surprise Baby but now he has unseated Craig Williams on the stayer in Saturday’s Zipping Classic at Sandown.
Surprise Baby flopped in the Cup after being strongly backed from $7 to $6 favourite in the final few moments of betting, overtaking eventual runner-up Tiger Moth at the top of betting charts.
But the Paul Pruesker-trained galloper was never a factor with Williams finding himself in trouble soon after the start. Surprise Baby finished 13th, almost nine lengths behind Twilight Payment.
“When racing in restricted room passing the 400 metres, on the first occasion, was hampered when tightened for room by Miami Bound which was laying away from Russian Camelot,” the Melbourne Cup stewards’ report stated.
“Rider Craig Williams reported, in his opinion, the gelding pulled up distressed. A post-race veterinary examination failed to reveal any obvious abnormality.”
Boss now gets the ride in the Group 2 Zipping Classic (2400m) at Sandown and Surprise Baby was the $4.50 favourite after nominations were released.
It is another example of the swings and roundabouts of racing, given Jordan Childs was Surprise Baby’s regular rider and rode him into fifth in the 2019 Melbourne Cup before being replaced by Williams this spring.
“When you have got a football team, you have got the senior players in the team and you have got the junior players,” owner John Fiteni said in September.
“I just wanted a senior player. It’s nothing against Jordie at all.”
Racenet understands earlier this year Boss was keen to ride Surprise Baby in the Melbourne Cup, and chased the ride, but connections went in another direction.
Now Boss has decided to stay in Melbourne for the Sandown meeting rather than returning to Sydney where he would have had to serve a COVID quarantine period, albeit it is understood there is an exemption, which would have let him ride at Saturday’s rich Newcastle meeting, featuring the $1m The Hunter.
Among Boss’s other rides on Saturday is ex-Chris Waller mare Danzdanzdance, now trained by Dean Binaisse, in the Group 3 Eclipse Stakes.
Boss will also ride Etah James in the Sandown Cup, Galaxy Raider in the Sandown Stakes and Hasstobegood in the Summoned Stakes.
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Originally published as Zipping Classic: Glen Boss snares ride on Melbourne Cup flop Surprise Baby