Last spring champion jockey Glen Boss declared Puissance De Lune the “2013 Melbourne Cup winner” and not surprisingly he leads a strong contingent of locally-trained imports in the early Cup market.

The Darren Weir-trained Puissance De Lune has gone up at $8 with TAB fixed odds in its Melbourne Cup market which opened on Friday with last year’s runner-up Fiorente at $13.

Other imports now locally-trained that are high up in the market are Sea Moon ($17), Reliable Man ($21), Michelangelo ($21), Jet Away ($26), and last year’s Melbourne Cup winner Green Moon ($26).

Occupying the third line of betting is the Luca Cumani-trained Mount Athos, fifth last year, and New Zealand colt It’s A Dundeel at $15.

Puissance De Lune raced to prominence late last year when he scored by big margins in the Bendigo Cup and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, prompting Boss to declare him the next Melbourne Cup winner.

The grey stayer impressed again in an autumn cameo, dead-heating in the Group Two Blamey Stakes in March, but then underwent surgery to remove bone chips from his front fetlock joints.

Weir said the operation was “about the same as a footballer having an end of season clean-up”.