MV On Track 2018

24 ON TRACK MAGAZINE A year or so later it seemed luck was against him again, when the Guy Walter-trained mare Republic Lass, on whom Boss had won the 2002 AJC Oaks, and defeated Northerly in the 2003 Ranvet Stakes, broke down early in her 2003 spring preparation. At the time Boss was doing the odd bit of riding for trainer David Hall, and he rang him ‘to have a bit of whinge’, and inquire if he had anything for the spring. Hall told him he could come and ride a mare for him in the Caulfield Cup, to see how she might shape for the Melbourne Cup. Her name was Makybe Diva. From the moment he sat on her Boss realised she was a very good horse, and although in his wildest dreams he could never have imagined the heights to which she would take him, his confidence in her never stopped growing. “She ran an unbelievable race in the Caulfield Cup (near last at the 800 metres, beaten just over a length into fourth place) and we were very confident we had the right horse for the Melbourne Cup,” Boss said. She won it, of course, but what impressed Boss the most about her was her incredible turn of speed. “Before you’d even ask her to go, she could put herself into a race with greatest of ease.” This became a feature of her wins. “If you were a racecaller, and you called her at the 800 metres, if you looked for her in the same spot 400 metres later she would have improved by 10 positions. She was a dream to ride.” After Makyba Diva’s 2003 Melbourne Cup win Hall accepted an offer to train in Hong Kong, so the mare’s owner, Tony Santic, sent her down to the Mornington Peninsula to be trained by Lee Freedman. Boss says Makybe Diva thrived in the outdoor environment at Freedman’s ‘Markdel’ property, and came to the spring of 2004 an even better horse. “She copped a bad draw in the Caulfield Cup but got beaten a nose, and she was still to reach her peak fitness.” In the Melbourne Cup Makybe Diva went up against the world’s best stayer, the Irish galloper Vinnie Roe, trained by Dermott Weld. Fittingly the pair of them fought out the finish, but it took a blinder of a ride from Boss to get Makybe Diva home by a bit over a length. “I hardly went around the horse that day,” Boss said. In fact from the 2000 metre mark he went around just one horse, the tiring Hard To Get, on the point of the home turn.