Glen Boss relives Melbourne Cup greatness in emotional reunion with invincible mare Makybe Diva

Glen Boss has revisited his historic Melbourne Cup three-peat in emotional reunion with champion mare Makybe Diva, who thrust both of them on to the international stage back in 2005.

For Glen Boss it still feels like yesterday.

He’s trying to explain what it was like to sit on the back of Makybe Diva, the horse who changed his life, as she stands a couple of metres away.

The pair have been reunited for the first time in 13 years, and Boss admits he’s emotional.

She’s now 20 and in foal for the final time to More Than Ready, but looks as if she’s parading around the mounting yard at Flemington again, her coat glistening in the sun.

“I’m blown away,” Boss said. “The last time I saw her was in 2006, and she just looks the same.”

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He’s pretty sure she still recognised his voice when he offered a couple of the special words he’d used when they were winning three Melbourne Cups together.

“She never disappointed, that was the good thing about her,” Boss said.

“I don’t know how many minutes I spent on her back, but of all of those minutes there was not even a milli-second where I went, ‘Aww s---, that wasn’t quite right’.

“It was always on, never off. Every step of every second I was on her it was always good. You just wondered how this was happening.”

Boss always marvelled at Makybe’s ability to flick a switch on race day when the barriers opened.

Makybe Diva and Glen Boss after winning the 2005 Melbourne Cup.

“Her best trait was just her ability to transform into something that she wasn’t ­before,” he said.

“You’d see her in the ­enclosure and she looked beautiful and then you’d get around to the barriers and be like, ‘Holy s---’ — she just morphed into a different beast and it was game on.

“It was ­instant power; when you turned it on it was boom, there was no lag time, no slowly building the revs up.

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Boss and Makybe Diva are reunited at Gnarwarre. Picture: Jason Edwards

“It was bang, and in two strides it was at its top.”

Boss and Makybe Diva have come together at owner Tony Santic’s property in Gnarwarre, outside Geelong, to celebrate the Top 25 ­Moments of the Spring ­Racing Carnival, which will be unveiled in the Sunday Herald Sun.

Inside the residence is a wall full of photos and paintings of Boss and his girl. Every race has its own memory.

The lightweight jockey began his partnership with Makybe Diva in the 2003 Caulfield Cup, where she came from an outside barrier to finish fourth. He knew then she’d win the Melbourne Cup.

For Boss the 2003 victory was a personal triumph as he finally had Australia’s greatest race on his CV.

“The first one was like, ‘Thank God I’ve won a Melbourne Cup’,” he said. “The second one was all about her beating Vinnie Roe, the horse everyone said was the best in the world over two miles.

Boss shares a quiet moment with the mighty mare. Picture: Jason Edwards

“And the third one was all about her because she had ­become such a public figure.

“She was mainstream by that point and had won the Cox Plate, so there was a lot going on about her.”

Despite winning three consecutive Melbourne Cups, Boss said the Diva’s best win came in The BMW in Sydney in 2005 when she ran down Grand Armee.

“She broke the clock that day, she was flying and just picked him up like he was tied to the fence,” he said.

Boss, who turned 50 last week, will base himself in Sydney this spring after ­struggling to get rides in ­Melbourne when he returned from a stint in Singapore.

Boss celebrates Makybe Diva’s historic third Melbourne Cup win.

He’s perplexed by the situation, but knows if ever he needs inspiration, Makybe Diva provides it.

“It’s amazing that she is so relevant today,” he said.

“I ask people and they know where they were when she won all three Cups, they know what they were doing.

“She is still relevant in people’s minds.

“They always refer back to her when Winx is mentioned, and that will happen for another 100 years.”

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