Back from retirement, Opie Bosson rode his 100th Group 1 winner on Legarto at Te Rapa last month. Photo / Kenton Wright
The first-ever Champions Day reminded Opie Bosson what he was supposed to be doing with his life.
The second Champions Day at Ellerslie tomorrow might remind everybody else.
While many of the racing industry’s biggest players were in the centre of the Champion Day storm last March, Bosson was at home watching horses he helped prep win our richest races.
The superstar jockey had retired prematurely a few months earlier, with his head and body not right, but was still riding trackwork for Te Akau, including Damask Rose, who came from last to win the inaugural NZB Kiwi.
“It was the day that made me realise I should be back out there,” Bosson told the Herald.
“I had been riding Damask Rose in trackwork and to be at home watching her win was tough.
“Don’t get me wrong, I was happy for the team and everybody involved with her and Blake [Shinn, jockey] rode her great but it was Champions Day that really made me realise I should still be out there.”
Which is exactly where Bosson will be tomorrow, the 45-year-old riding the favourites in two of our most important races, Legarto in the $1m million Bonecrusher New Zealand Stakes and Brayden Star in $600,000 Trackside Auckland Cup.
The pair face very different challenges in the weights, with Legarto perfectly suited by the weight-for-age scale, whereas Brayden Star will have to carry the 58kg topweight in the Cup, 5kg more than most of his rivals.
“Legarto is flying,” Bosson said of the mare who gave him his 100th Group 1 win in the Herbie Dyke Stakes a month ago.
“I have been riding her in work and I think she will be even better than she was at Te Rapa.
“She has the perfect draw and I suppose the only concern would be her Ellerslie record but I think she can turn that around.”
In Kingswood, Pier, Jaarffi and Provence, who is stepping up to 2000m, there are in-form horses who can exploit any percentage points of performance Legarto may lose going right-handed but she is still the mare to beat.
Brayden Star faces a far greater challenge in the Auckland Cup because horses carrying 58kg to win 3200m Cups usually start with the word Makybe and end with the word Diva (RIP, beautiful girl).
“It is a lot of weight,” Bosson said.
“But I think he will be a better horse this weekend than he was in the Avondale Cup last start, where he didn’t like the blinkers.
“They come off on Saturday but it is Cup race and like so many of those, there is a lot of chances.”
As the rider of some of New Zealand’s great mares of the last decade in Imperatriz, Melody Belle and Avantage, Bosson knows how hard our latest galloping glamour girl Well Written will be to beat in tomorrow’s NZB Kiwi.
But he does think his ride He Who Dares is a better chance than his price indicates.
“He has run second to her the last two times they have met so I think his place price is very generous,” Bosson said.
“The wide draw doesn’t help but if he can get across to outside the leader easily enough, he will kick hard and I can definitely see him running in three, but beating the filly might be another thing.”
Bosson resumes his association with Quintessa in the Al Basti Equiworld Classic, as the forgotten mare who won the first Group 1 of the season on this track back in September returns.
“She is also working well and the blinkers go on, which always help her, so she is a good hope but we’d like her not to be carrying 58kgs,” he said.
Weight means Bosson will ride Te Akau-trained outsider Out Of The Blue in the $600,000 Sistema Stakes rather than stablemate Lara Antipova, who he won the Matamata Breeders Stakes on last start.
“She is a really good juvenile filly and does things very easily so it will take a good horse to beat her.”
As for his Derby mount Towering Vision, Bosson can only hope he does a Willydoit, who was thrashed in the Avondale Guineas last season then bounced back to win the Derby.
On his last-start performance though, it is a head-scratcher that Towering Vision is still rated a $10 chance in the Derby.
But no matter what his odds, the one certainty of tomorrow’s special day is that the punter’s favourite jockey is still a way better chance of winning a race on this Champions Day than he was sitting on the couch last year.
What: New Zealand’s richest race day with stakes of $8,550,000.
Where: Ellerslie, Auckland.
When: This Saturday, first race 12.55pm.
Who: Many of our best gallopers, headlined by unbeaten filly Well Written, taking on a smattering of Australians.
Highlights: $4m NZB Kiwi, $1.25m HKJC World Pool NZ Derby, $1m Bonecrusher NZ Stakes, $600,000 Trackside Auckland Cup, $600,000 Al Basta Equiworld Dubai Classic, $550,000 Sistema Stakes, $250,000 Haunui Farm Kings Plate.
More info: www.ellerslie.co.nz
The punt: www.tab.co.nz or www.betcha.co.nz
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.