We're ahead of Aussies with call for change of date

We've got one over the Aussies.

As successful as the mega-rich championships were in Sydney - they were just fabulous - there is a call for change.

Several years back, to streamline the northern racing calendar, the Auckland Racing Club created a set date for the Easter Stakes, rather than run it each year on the changeable date of Easter, which can swing by six weeks.

It made for much better planning of the country's high class metric milers.

Now, there has been a call for the championships to fall into the same pattern. Champion trainer Chris Waller heads the call for change in Sydney.

The call is for Rosehill and Randwick to swap a few dates, the main end result of which would see the Doncaster and the A$4 million Queen Elizabeth Stakes with two weeks between them instead of the seven days this time.

"It would be perfect," says Waller.

Who's the Boss in Aussie?

Sydney jockey Hugh Bowman has had a combined payday in the past two weeks that would set some people up for life.

But don't think that's indicative of it being easy at the top in Australia.

One of the best, Glen Boss, is heading from Australia to Singapore and hopes to ride out his career there.

Boss is disillusioned with his place in Australian racing and believes he would be on a virtual scrapheap in a year or two unless he makes a definitive move.

This from a horseman who was on top of the world when he won three consecutive Melbourne Cups on the great Makybe Diva and who has always had a larger than life profile.

"I know I got great opportunities last Saturday only because a heap of other jockeys were in Sydney. When they're back I'll struggle to get a ride," Boss told the Herald Sun.

Boss, 46, believes he has five to eight years left of his riding career. "There's no point hanging around and whingeing that I'm not getting rides. I'm not that sort of bloke.

"It's time for me to reinvent myself and ply my trade somewhere else," said the Queensland-born horseman.

Boss believes freelancing rather than being attached to a leading stable coupled with his straight shooting style has led to his lack of opportunities.

"I think my biggest downfall is that I'm a straight shooter and that can rub people up the wrong way," he said.

"It's a funny game. Unless you're winning the opportunities won't come your way.

"Racing snowballs one way or the other and for me it's gone the wrong way.

Boss said he hoped to ride in Singapore for the next five or six years.

Will Australian racing really be the same without those emotional stand-in-the-saddle victory salutes of Glen Boss?