Most jockeys would be satisfied to win one Melbourne Cup, let alone three, but Glen Boss wants more, reports Tom Biddington at racing.com.
For the man who rode Makybe Diva in all of her famous victories, the fire still burns strongly - and the preparation to find the next Cup winner has already started.
The Melbourne Cup takes months of planning for all involved - trainers, administrators, marketing types - even the gardeners at Flemington pruned the roses on May 4 to try and have them blooming at 3pm on the first Tuesday in November.
It’s no different for jockeys.
The recently inducted Hall of Fame hoop has been watching plenty of replays - from both local and international races - while making a few phone calls and putting some feelers out to see if he can land himself a prime mount for this year’s event.
“We’ve been looking now,” Boss told Racing.com.
“I wouldn’t say I’ve got a horse at the moment, but you’ve got the feelers out there.
“You’re looking at the horses who went through the autumn and the ones who came though the cup last year.
“You have feelers out there all the time - see how serious they are and what they’re bringing.
“Hopefully you go the right way.”
The recent dominance of the internationals in the ‘race that stops a nation’ hasn’t gone unnoticed by Boss.
Overseas-trained horses have won in three of the past five years (Protectionist, Dunaden andAmericain) so he’s spending most of his research time looking abroad.
“It’s certainly heading that way - they’re going to take it away every second year ... so you’ve got to be looking that way,” Boss said.
“You just try and put the feelers out there and knowing that you’ve got a bit of a reputation in the race, you might be able to pick up one of those good foreigners.”
One horse to have caught Boss’s eye internationally is a stayer called Fame Game, who finished second in the Tenno Sho (Spring), one of Japan’s premier staying events.
WATCH: Boss talk about his Hall of Fame induction
The Japanese have had plenty of success whenever they’ve brought their horses out to Australia with Delta Blues winning the Melbourne Cup in 2006 before Admire Rakti took out the Caulfield Cup last year.
There’s been some talk about Fame Game, among other hopefuls from Japan, making the trip down under and Boss is paying attention.
“I like the Japanese - they interest me a lot,” Boss said.
“They’ve got superior stayers - it’s just so hard to ignore.
“You try and target the right horse.”
In the meantime, while keeping an eye on movements both locally and abroad, Boss is happy to keep grinding away.
Some would find it hard to get up for a mid-week meeting on the provincial circuit, but Boss believes it’s an integral piece of the process.
“It’s part of the preparation,” he said.
“It’s the same as footballers, doing the yards in the training paddock in the cold winter mornings, it’s the same thing.
“Without that you don’t reach the goal.”
When you ask Boss to describe the feeling of winning a Melbourne Cup you can see him reliving the elation and his eyes light up.
He knows better than most what it’s like to win on a global stage and have your name forever linked to such an iconic event.
“You’ve got no idea what it does to you,” he said.
“You just don’t go ‘oh geez that was great I finally won one’ - it’s wow. You need to get that again, because it’s an incredible feeling.
“You chase that feeling every time.”