KEY POINTS:
Singapore-bound Opie Bosson has four weeks to get his weight down.
New Zealand's best jockey has a little more than a month before he starts his contract in Singapore and admits he's carrying part of his recent two weeks in Thailand around his waist.
"I'm about to start
to ride trackwork again to get fit."
Bosson has been having an easy time of it since he started losing the battle against rising weight a couple of months ago.
He made a partial comeback, but spent the past month on the sideline.
Bosson hopes Singapore's heat will assist him in keeping his weight down.
He has ridden there before, but only for two weeks at a time, and his current contract is for six months as a freelance jockey.
"I'd been hoping something like this would come along; it's time I started travelling."
Bosson finished third behind Lisa Cropp and Chris Johnson in the jockeys' premiership, which finished with yesterday's Oamaru meeting, but premierships have never been a focus for him.
"Winning the big races is all I've cared about," he says.
This season he landed 115 winners, at 14 easily the most group and listed stakes race winners and he has the best strike rate of the top eight riders.
Bosson was a long time away from the game because of weight problems and, as a result, rode only part of the 2005-06 and 2004-05 seasons.
In 2003-04, riding 81 winners, he had the least number of rides among the top jockeys and stake earnings of more than $500,000 higher than the next-best.
Mat Cameron this week leaves to take up a contract with Sydney trainer Gerald Ryan and Vinny Colgan is currently riding under contract in India.
The ranks were strengthened with the recent return from Singapore of Mark De Plessis, but it was a painful welcome to New Zealand on Saturday when he was dragged by veteran galloper Ben Sparta, who shattered a cannon bone soon after the start of the open sprint.
Du Plessis cleared his foot, but suffered concussion and must stand down for three weeks.
He complained of a major headache and was taken to hospital for scans, but was otherwise uninjured.
The sprint was won by Danz Star, despite being hampered when the leader, Avaroadi, hung out away from the rail in the home straight.