MV On Track 2018

26 ON TRACK MAGAZINE BOOK YOUR EVENT AT THE VALLEY THEVALLEY.COM.AU WHERE THE PARTY IS ONLY THE BEGINNING Incredible as it might seem Makybe Diva continued to improve. Boss reckons her best win ever came in the autumn, 2005, in The BMW at Rosehill over 2400 metres, in which she beat seven-time Group 1 winner Grand Armee. “She gave him eight lengths start from the 800 metres, and beat him by two. He’d had a pretty easy time in front, but she sprinted for 800 metres. Her sustained acceleration that day was unbelievable.” The 2005 W.S. Cox Plate was Makybe Diva’s spring mission, and by the time it came around Boss considered her unbeatable. “That day was all about her arrogance; it was the chance to show what she could really do,” he said. “I even told Lee I was going to ride her a bit ugly.” Who can ever forget the sight of eight horses swinging around the home turn line abreast, with seven of them under hard riding and, out six wide, Makybe Diva powering through with G.Boss sitting as quiet as a mouse. She won untouched, and as she returned to scale, with Boss now wearing a glittering red, white and blue masquerade mask, one of thousands made for the day, the reception was deafening. He took his time presenting her to the crowd, partly because he believed it was probably her last race. “At that point we still didn’t have the Melbourne Cup on the radar,” he said. That changed when Freedman rang early the following week to say the mare had done really well, and had actually put on weight. After riding her in a rousing 2000 metre gallop on Derby Day morning, Boss was in no doubt she would win a record-breaking third Cup, and she did. “It was one of her softest wins,” he commented. Few jockeys get to win a Cox Plate on a true champion, but four years after his success on Makyba Diva, Boss was fortunate enough to win the 2009 renewal on another one, the Bart Cummings-trained So You Think, being one of a handful of jockeys who could ride the then three year-old’s weight of 49.5kg.