By Andrew Adermann
You’d be forgiven for doing a double take when running your eye over the card for tomorrow’s $1.5 million Road to Magic Millions Raceday at Eagle Farm.
The likes of Alligator Blood and The Candy Man step out once again, and the Queensland pair will be looking to build on what has already been a successful summer.
However, there’s a few other big names that catch the eye when scanning the card, and they’re not of the equine fraternity.
Some of the country’s best jockeys in Damien Oliver, Glen Boss, Kerrin McEvoy, Josh Parr, Linda Meech, Jason Collett and Luke Currie all make the trek north this week, in what will be the start of the southern invasion leading up to Magic Millions on January 11.
Oliver and Boss, in particular, arrive off the back of red-hot spring campaigns in Victoria and New South Wales respectively.
Oliver continued to re-write history this spring by becoming the Flemington Carnival's most successful jockey after his Victoria Derby victory on Warning took his tally to 74 wins.
He also recorded his 116th Group 1 win aboard Miami Bound in the VRC Kennedy Oaks in the same week.
Boss, a former Brisbane apprentice, established a dominant partnership with Australia’s premier trainer Chris Waller this spring, taking out the $14 million Everest at Royal Randwick in October aboard gun three-year-old colt, Yes Yes Yes.
Earlier in the spring, Boss rode another Waller-trained star in Kolding to victory in the Group 1 Epsom at Randwick, and steered the same horse home in the first running of the $7.5 million Golden Eagle at Rosehill a month later.
Elsewhere in the arriving group of hoops, McEvoy, the 2018 Melbourne Cup winning jockey, will be hoping to put a mixed Spring Carnival behind him by re-capturing his form from last summer where he won the Magic Millions 2YO Classic aboard Godolphin filly Exhilarates.
The Eagle Farm card kicks off tomorrow at 12.08pm (AEST).
Click here for further information on the Road to the Magic Millions Raceday.