How do I add colorbox-load classes and attributes to links that come from an svg image?

I have SVG images that are added to nodes via svg_image_field module. They have internal links in them /load-parts-ajax/{nid}. The path leads to a pop-up page view of content with this path /load-parts-ajax/%. I am attempting open the view in a colorbox. I have this in my implementation in Drupal 7, which works fine. We installled the colorbox_node module, and used the colorbox-node class and this was very easy.

For Drupal 9 however, I have colorbox installed, and it's library and have tried colorbox_load, with ng_lightbox, and I added the path to the allowed paths in the configuration with no dice. I am also trying to colorbox_simple_load to call the colorbox-load class with no luck.

(I can hack render the whole view page site and all by stuffing cboxElement after the class but I am certain that is wrong.)

Here is the .js:

(function ($, Drupal) {
  Drupal.behaviors.MY_MODULE = {
    attach: function (context, settings) {
      $(document).ajaxStop(function() {
        setTimeout(function () { //necessary to add a brief pause for colorbox to reintiate
          $(".view-MY-POP-UP-VIEW", context).once().flexslider({
            animation: "slides",
            slideshow: false,
            touch: false,
            animationLoop: false,
          });
        }, 500);
      });

      $(".field--name-field-MY-IMAGE .svg_a", context).each(function(index, item) {
        $(item).attr("href", $(item).attr("xlink:href"));
        $(item).attr("data-inner-width", "304");
        $(item).attr("data-inner-height", "532");
        $(item).attr("class", "colorbox-load");
      });
    }
  };
})(jQuery, Drupal);

And here is how I am calling my .js libraries, one where the SVG is rendered in a view, one for the node display.

/**
 * Implements hook_views_pre_render().
 */
function MY_views_pre_render(\Drupal\views\ViewExecutable $view) {
  if (isset($view) && $view->storage->id() == 'MY_VIEW') {
    $view->element['#attached']['library'][] = 'MY_MODULE/MY-LIBRARY';
  }
}

/**
 * Implements hook_preprocess_node().
 */
function MY_preprocess_node(&$variables) {
  $node = $variables['node'];
  if ($node->bundle() == 'MY_NODE') {
    $variables['#attached']['library'][] = 'MY_MODULE/MY-LIBRARY';
  }
}

The attributes from the .js file are getting added to the image links in both cases, but the colorbox-load class does not seem to get recognized as the links just open the view in a new window.

Here is the markup, which looks identical to the working drupal 7 markup (aside from using colorbox-load class instead of colorbox-node)

<a id="e3_hyperlink" xlink:title="" xlink:href="/load-parts-ajax/251" target="_blank" class="colorbox-load" href="/load-parts-ajax/251" data-inner-width="304" data-inner-height="532">

So before I wrongly open a bug report, is there something simple I am missing for implementing the colorbox-load class properly, or should something like this work just like it is?

EDIT: The colorbox_simple_load has this in it's project page:

$url = Url::fromUri('internal:/example.html');
$link = Link::fromTextAndUrl(t('View'), $url);
$output = $link->toRenderable();
$output['#attributes']['class'] = [
  'colorbox-load',
];
colorbox_simple_load_page_attachments($output);

So I could put this in my custom module, but im not sure what sort of hook I would need to use to implement it on the SVG images.