Melbourne Cup 2020: Glen Boss racing for glory at 51 with Sir Dragonet
A year ago, Glen Boss was written off. On Tuesday he aims to be the oldest winner of the Melbourne Cup. Here’s his strategy.
Champion jockey Glen Boss won’t touch the Melbourne Cup favourite, Sir Dragonet, until he jumps aboard the five-year-old stallion just before the big race on Tuesday.
It’s not superstition; it’s just a winning strategy in a year when Boss hopes to become potentially the oldest winner of Australia’s most famous horse race in its 159-year history.
On Friday, former jockey James Winks rode Sir Dragonet at trackwork at Sandown while Boss was put through a punishing workout at a nearby suburban oval by his personal trainer.
The strategy worked a week ago when Boss jumped aboard Sir Dragonet and rode it to a stunning victory in the prestigious Cox Plate. It was the first time he’d been on it and by Tuesday it will have been 10 days since he has seen the horse.
Sir Dragonet is trying to be just the eighth horse to complete the Cox Plate and Melbourne Cup double. Boss reckons he’s onto a winner as he relishes the opportunity to win another big one at the supposed advanced age of 51.
“Words couldn’t describe what it means to me if I win, to be honest,” Boss said. “There’s a lot of people who think you’re not capable of doing this high pressure job at this age. But it is absolute bullshit and I’m showing that.
“I’m getting towards the pointy end of my career. I always celebrated a win but now it means a lot more to me. I’m an emotional guy. You can tell what I’m thinking just by looking at my face. If I’m angry, you can tell. If I’m happy, you can see it.”
He has been very happy lately, showing that emotion when he stood up and punched the air with joy as Sir Dragonet crossed the winning line last Saturday, earning a $1000 fine.
Not that Boss cared.
It was only 18 months ago when he was at his lowest ebb, written off and unable to get any decent rides. He may have won three Melbourne Cups in a stellar career but the last one was in 2005 on Makybe Diva, which he was aboard for three consecutive Cup wins and a Cox Plate win too.
Boss spent three years in Singapore, landing back in Sydney to little interest from trainers and owners. He felt written off and it hit hard, as he had headed off to places such as Goulburn midweek to chase a win. Any win. “You have real dark times when you have been at a really high level you know you can perform at, but you can’t always be there,” Boss sad.
“Mentally I had to be tough as possible, just to break back in and eat humble pie. I used to think the game owed me something because I had done so much; have a look at me, where is the respect, that sort of thing. It is the total opposite, it turns out I owe the game.”
It is a big change for someone long known as one of racing’s big characters. He hasn’t lost his trademark confidence, but he says he has matured.
“I started meditating and doing all those things to get that really negative bullshit out of my head,” he said.
“I had some really shit moments, but it is about managing the expectations of yourself. That is the key, managing the thoughts in your brain and how you think about things. It is the bad stuff you learn from though. When the shit stuff is there, you can’t dwell on it. You use it as a learning tool to not go back there and have a different mindset.”
Boss swore off alcohol and complemented the meditation with an intense cardio fitness regimen. He laughs about now being in better shape than jockeys half his age. “They’re in their mid-20s and they can’t keep up with me,” he said. “I love that.”
He had a big breakthrough by riding home Yes Yes Yes to a famous victory in last year’s Everest at Randwick.
After the 2020 Everest two weeks ago, he and wife Sloane drove all the way to Melbourn —– they saw their adult children Tate and Carter for the first time in eight months as he quarantined at home for five days.
It hit home to Boss what it is like to race during the pandemic, especially in Melbourne where there were no crowds at the Cox Plate and the 100,000-capacity Flemington will be empty for the entire Melbourne Cup carnival, starting with Victoria Derby Day on Saturday.
“It’s been weird but we’ve been blessed that we’ve been able to keep going,” he said. “The easiest part has been the race, it just becomes you and the horse. Going in and out (onto the course) that is strange.”
As is often the case in racing there are fortuitous circumstances to Boss getting the ride on the favourite. Rival and friend Hugh Bowman was Sir Dragonet’s jockey but was suspended earlier in the spring carnival. Bowman recommended to the horse’s owners that Boss get the Cox Plate ride.
They eventually agreed and the rest is history.
As would winning on Tuesday for Boss. “I think I’ve got the right horse again, I know I can go out and do a job,” he said. “I’m not fazed, the bigger the occasion the better I go.”
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