Racing: Bosson takes grand effort in his stride

Perhaps the wry smile told the Opie Bosson story of his 1000th winner in the saddle at New Plymouth on Saturday.

Through the murk and mud of a terrible weather day, Bosson was probably acknowledging exactly where that 1000 wins sat in the overall scheme of things.

Three factors stood out moments after the Bryce Revell-trained I Am Sam helped him to the milestone.

It was a given it was always going to happen.

That it took a bit longer than you would have bet on during Bosson's first season riding in the mid-1990s.

How some of the glamour has gone off 1000 career wins as a jockey.

That's no disrespect to anyone who achieves it - it's just that it's been made a lot easier.

Michael Walker holds the record for the fastest 1000 career wins at nine years and 5 months, 13 months faster than Lance O'Sullivan.

Grenville Hughes - and there was probably no greater rider of what you would consider the modern era - took 24 years to ride 1000 winners.

He rode his first in 1942 and his 1000th on the John Malcolm-owned and trained Tina at Te Aroha on December 10, 1966. But that was riding only Saturdays and the occasional public holiday on eight-race cards, whereas today's riders compete up to four days a week on 10, and sometimes even 11-race programmes.

When you factor in the degree of opportunity, Hughes' achievement was almost certainly better than Walker's, O'Sullivan's and Bosson's, particularly as Hughes had to battle jockey talent of much greater depth than the other trio faced to get their 1000.

Some of Hughes' contemporaries, many of them outstanding horsemen, retired without achieving 1000 winners simply because of the lack of opportunity.

For the record, Bosson took 14 years for his 1000, a timeframe that was lengthened by weight issues and several attempts at retirement.

Through at least the second half of that time, Bosson has always been rated overall as the best in the jockeys' room - certainly the most popular and the most respected.

Maturity has done a lot in the area of rounding out all those elements and packaging them to use while looking through his raceday goggles.

If there is a way to panic Owen Patrick (Opie for short) Bosson it has yet to be discovered.

A temperament that makes him the perfect big-race rider.

No surprise then that he rates his 2008 Kelt Capital Stakes victory on Princess Coup as a career highlight. "We'd all put a lot into it and we went into the race with a lot of confidence and it fell into place."

Two good fillies made their debuts at Matamata yesterday, despite it being a modest raceday.

We Can Say It Now and Simply Brilliant are by Starcraft, were last-start barrier trial winners on debut and are trained by Murray and Bjorn Baker.

The point of difference is that We Can Say It Now won and Simply Brilliant was beaten in the last stride.

Murray Baker is in no doubt both fillies would have won had the track not cut out quite so much.

The pair are owned by Australian Paul Makin, who raced Starcraft. "They're both very good fillies," said Baker.

We Can Say It Now looks to have unlimited potential. She jumped away with the field from her outside gate, but took several slow strides and settled equal last, wide on the track.

She improved around the field four and five wide and challenged soon after the home turn. She raced very greenly, looking around and appearing not to concentrate, but was still too good and won comfortably. Pooka's Sister beat Simply Brilliant only because of the conditions, Baker said.

We Can Say It Now is out of the Generous mare, We Can't Say That.

"She was very good. I think she won seven in town in Sydney and Melbourne," said Baker.

We Can Say It Now will run next either in the $45,000 Great Northern Foal Stakes at Ellerslie on Saturday week, or in the Triton Stakes.

"I don't know what we'll do with Simply Brilliant other than to sit around and hope we get a decent track somewhere."