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Thunder In Motion has been impressive in his two starts so far but steps up in grade for today’s NZ 2000 Guineas at Riccarton. Photo/Peter Rubery
TODAY’S RACING
- Riccarton, NZ 2000 Guineas and NZ Cup Day, first race 11.40am.
- Tauranga, Gartshore Tauranga Stakes Day, first race 1pm.
- Sandown, Orr Stakes (Group 1) Day, first race 2.20pm (NZ time).
There are jockeys who know how to win a certain race and then there is Opie Bosson’s relationship with the New Zealand 2000 Guineas.
Because it is at a whole level of its own.
The classic will be run at Riccarton today and Bosson is riding Thunder In
Motion, one of several emerging gallopers in a Guineas light on major race winners and proven Group 1 form.
If Thunder In Motion wins today, it will be Bosson’s ninth victory in the glamour 3-year-old race.
Other Kiwi jockeys have had affinities with certain races: Vinnie Colgan in the New Zealand Derby, Lance O’Sullivan won the Telegraph seven times in the saddle and once as a trainer, and Bosson also has a wonderful Karaka Millions record.
But the 2000 Guineas is a worldwide classic and winning it eight times is absurd, especially as Bosson hasn’t finished his riding career yet.
He nearly did, retiring prematurely two years ago before coming back to be one of last summer’s stars of the saddle, but you don’t have to look far into the classic races this week to realise Bosson’s career has undergone another major change.
It used to be that Bosson plus a Te Akau horse equalled big race winners, but while he still rides trackwork and occasionally on race days for the Matamata powerhouse stable, he is no longer their retained rider.
That means Bosson is a free agent, able to ride any horse he wants for any trainer, and with his weight down to 55.5kg, the Bosson business is open for summer.
“I think some people still think I am retained by Te Akau but that isn’t the case, even though I do a ride lot of work for them,” he told the Herald.
“It is a bit frustrating because often trainers don’t think I’d be able to ride their horses but I am freelance now.
“With my weight back down, I am really looking forward to summer and while I am, and always will be, grateful to David [Ellis] and Te Akau for all the great times we have had, and I am available to still ride for them, there is something quite exciting about being freelance and seeing where my next good horse comes from.”
He gets two cracks at that in today’s richest two races, with Thunder In Motion a genuine winning chance in a wide open Guineas and he partners Athabascan, the Australian-trained favourite in the $450,000 New Zealand Cup.
“I rode Thunder In Motion in work last week and he has a lovely big stride and feels like a good horse,” Bosson said.
“But it is a very open Guineas, almost any of them can win and the two fillies have a hope too.”
Bosson is right; it is hard to discount any of the 10 Guineas starters and Christchurch’s improved weather should provide an almost perfect surface.
Co-trainer Robert Wellwood said early favourite Excite is spot on for today and should suit 1600m on the big track, while O’Sullivan said he can’t choose between his stable’s trio of Coniston, Rip Tide and Dashing Dixie.
“It is very even and might come down to who gets the best run and the tempo,” O’Sullivan said.
Athabascan arrives at Riccarton today having raced in some of Australia’s best 3200m races but will carry the 59kg topweight, something rarely done successfully in our major staying races these days.
But Bosson got words of encouragement this week from an old mate who happens to be the world’s best jockey.
“I was talking to Jmac [James McDonald] and he said, on the quality of races Athabascan has been racing in, he has to be a huge chance.”
The Cup looks hard to pick and over half the field will carry 53kg, which has been the golden weight in many 3200m races in New Zealand over the past decade.
Athabascan isn’t the only Australian in today’s NZ Cup, with Tajanis also crossing the Tasman for Go Racing.
He has raced here once and was narrowly beaten in last year’s Auckland Cup by Trav.
Ironically, these two Auckland Cup quinellamates start in today’s Cup carrying the minimum 53kg, meaning they get 4kg each from horses such as Sunset Boulevard and Rosso, who have not won anything approaching an Auckland Cup in their careers.
Trav could be the longshot bet in the Cup even though he has rarely run a place since winning the Auckland Cup because he seems happiest over 3200m and often uninterested over anything shorter.
With those two iconic races and Platinum Attack trying to carry 60kg to win the Stewards today, which he probably will, Cup week 2026 is set to get a fitting send-off at Riccarton today.
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.
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