By MIKE DILLON
The glint is back in the eye.
And Opie Bosson is determined it's there to stay.
The former whiz kid apprentice is hungry, literally and figuratively, to get back to the top of racing's tree after nearly six months in the bleaches.
Before he shattered his collarbone at the Cup meeting at Riccarton in November, Bosson found winning feature races commonplace.
His picture-perfect ride on Maserati at Avondale on the weekend was his first success in nearly six months. It was a minor winner, but the delight was obvious.
The 20-year-old celebrated with an apple.
Only those close to Bosson know the horrors he went through to maintain his weight at even a reasonable level during a couple of high-profile seasons.
While he was hogging all racing's headlines in the pre-Michael Walker days, Bosson was going through a private hell.
"I was taking diuretics and they were making me feel ordinary," he said between rides at yesterday's Te Aroha trials.
Without what is known in racing as the piss pills, Bosson may not have even been able to keep going.
His body was sick of food deprivation and he now sees his time on the sideline as a blessing for his physical well-being, despite the tough time he is currently experiencing getting his weight back down.
"My body needed the break, it got sour from all the wasting."
In just four weeks Bosson dropped eight kilos, and at the moment he can ride at 56kg. But now it gets tough to drop the next 3kg which will allow him to ride at 53kg.
He believes it will take him four weeks to achieve.
And this time he is determined to stay away from diuretics, which tend to have a sting in the tail in the long term.
Breakfast is bran flakes and a banana, lunch a small portion of tuna and the remainder of his food consumption consists of bananas and apples.
"I do a lot of running and that's helping."
Bosson admits that with his wasting horrors burned crystal-clear in his mind, beginning his latest weight-loss programme was a daunting task.
"I felt pretty ordinary for a while, but once I'd worked through that I started to level out."
The former Rotorua boy who was born probably 10-12cm too tall to be a jockey is starting to feel good again.
He says that sitting on the sideline over the summer, watching racing's biggest money being decided on the racetracks was not too hard.
"I have to say I didn't really miss it because I knew the break was doing me good."
Bosson rides Star Of Gold in the Easter Handicap on Saturday, his other rides including Zabeel's Angel, St Tiara, Faiross and Centamira.
His goals are to quickly increase his tally of 450 wins and to gain an overseas contract during the winter in a warm climate where sustaining his weight will be easier.
And where bananas are cheaper.
Racing: Bosson going bananas in comeback bid
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