Seems sadly ironic doesn’t it, that in the end, what finally beat Black Caviar was her feet.
Those feet, well ok, hooves, that had carried her to that remarkable unblemished career 25 victories, where all that the 185 vanquished over her career would see, were those clean pair of flat fast heels.
The fastest in the world, yet like the very best in sport, she made the effort look effortless, the Usain Bolt of her track, and thankfully and ultimately ours.
Superstars do such. And for such elite athletes, subsequent minute discern and dissection looking for some clue to that greatness, is almost as wasteful and in vain as tracking a holy grail.
(But I did find such a relevant -or maybe irrelevant fact - that her fastest furlong – 200m - was nearly twice as fast at Bolt with a top speed of just over 45mph. Of course, Bolt was better at the shorter trip!)
Anyway, who cares. We treasure simply being their witness.
Then nature has a way of sorting such things. Time caught Bolt, who had made times his forever own and many seemingly stored in stone, but he too was eventually beaten.
But not Nelly, as she became so ubiquitously known. And for much of that career, it was always with nags and niggles, stretched muscles, strained hamstrings. walls to forever run through, and all marvelled that she could and did, time after time, after 25 times.
Yet Black Caviar was able to go out on her and owner’s terms from the track. But like other generational equine heroines Makybe Diva and Winx, we’d hope to see their like again.
Of course, that is more aspirational than thinking of their second coming of anything like them. Rare diamonds are rarely found twice.
So, we learned Nelly was able to deliver a Snitzel colt, before news came through Monday that nature was not to allow the expectation of future dreams.
So we are left forever with rare memories from the track none more so than Royal Ascot.
As Alan Lee, wrote in his Times of London column of Royal Ascot Golden Jubilee Day 2012: “A scriptwriter, commissioned to construct a drama around a racehorse could scarcely have conceived of anything better.
“Black Caviar, a beach-bum of a horse back home in the suburbs of Melbourne, is Crocodile Dundee on four legs and Ascot, manicured and decorous is a destiny built on satire. Dress codes and customs notwithstanding, the old place may be just a little more unbuttoned for her presence.”
There can never be a reason over rationale. Let alone the revered, if not somewhat stuffy, Times writing anything about a racehorse, let alone an Aussie one and include her picture on the back page, when the English football team were ensconced in the European Championships.
Of course, we now know much more of the Black Caviar Royal Ascot story but I revisit it here in detail having been involved behind the scenes, what went so close to going wrong, get remained the triumph of her career.
Like this snippet on race day and the boiling pressure: First stop on the near two-hour trip to Ascot was the BP Service Station on the end of the Bury Road.
“Phil pulled in and we got a carton of big bottles (of beer), I think we had three or four when Pete said something like ‘f$%k it, let’s go to London, Tony can saddle her up’,” Cavanough said.
“He’d had it, he just thought he was on a hiding and didn’t want to front up.”
The day and the aftermath are revealed here: BLACK CAVIAR P2: (racenet.com.au)
Obituaries since the public acknowledgement of her passing have been well shared and lovingly written, but trophies carry dust, memories last forever.
And that’s the best way to remember Black Caviar. Because so many have real memories, if not their only memories of a racehorse let alone Nelly or the army of Black Cavaliers that were easily conscripted.
That was the pull of Black Caviar, the knock aboutness of Peter Moody and Luke Nolen, once seen signing autographs and posing for fan pictures long after the last of “the Perfect 10” at Flemington one Saturday afternoon. A racehorse!
Media and fans marvelled, some questioned Moody if she could win the Melbourne Cup or why wasn't she in the race for the best horses, the Cox Plate, it was standard fare when once a yearers and outsiders, clamoured for a bit of her story as well.
And with them came the owners, you know them as the Echuca houseboat crew first – junior Sunday School Congregationalists at some stage but Neil Werrett (and Lina), The Wilkies, (Gary and Kerrin), the Maddens (Col and Jannene), the Taylor’s (David and Jill) and Pam and Barry Hawkes, all became part of our lives for that brief comet of time that encapsulated them more so than us.
And through them, vicariously fans joined them, mention stable manager Jeff O’Connor, assistant trainer Tony Haydon, track rider Paddy Bell, minder Donna Fischer, chiropractor (and as mentioned in stories above, Moody’s travel mate) Mick Bryant, vet Peter Angus (ditto on that big journey), but we always felt invited.
So much so when the next big thing came along, and who’d have thought a Winx, would breach the horizon so soon, her trainer Chris Waller, had a ready template of how to handle indulgence and associated pressure himself and all concerned via a hotline self-help to Moody and racing was again all the better for it.
So, to Black Caviar’s legacy? Books written, documentaries commissioned, rarities and b-sides if you like. For a sport seemingly hanging on the edge of a social licence, Black Caviar and all involved, took the box office path and she ensured her role was flawless so the star remained to shine brightly.
Yet comparison to ghost’s past is irrelevant and mere click-bait babble.
Simply put she was imperious, unbeaten. But then so too were Kinscem, queen of them all on paper, 54 from 54, from Hungary but to Germany, England and France, a producer of Classic winners, but all we know is her name and her statistics, not whether she was loved and embraced.
Justify was unbeaten too, but just six from six, but that including a Triple Crown, meaning he was more valuable not to race and try and produce others somewhere near as good as him.
Eclipse was old school as well, 18th Century, won all 18, but an era of heat racing before Classics, though his record remains revered from afar and from observation.
Nearco (14 from 14, including a Grand Prix de Paris before an impactful stud career), Lammtarra (4 from 4 but an Arc and a Derby), Zarkava (7 from 7 including an Arc), all unbeaten.
Perhaps if there is a relevant comparison, if of any worth or in any way worthy of similar discussion, it is Frankel, a real contemporary, who transformed British racing with 14 without defeat but fittingly book started that fabulous week of Black Caviar’s 2012 Royal Ascot, setting the scene with a romp in the Queen Anne Stakes before asking Nelly to take the podium over at the close. Which she did, yes just, but no extra for the margin, plenty for the theatre.
But also, then remember what Black Caviar did around Australia before Moody and connections took the leap to that international stage: they can always come here he would taunt; their money wasn’t as good as ours he would tease.
Around the country, there were flags flying, posters like political rallies, kids on parent’s shoulders, some hoisted some in those silks. Think thousands in the middle of a Melbourne winter cold, assembling at midnight in Federation Square, to watch a race on the other side of the world.
But these were times so rare that racetracks were more rock concert venues, when the punt was way more than a responsibly mandated message, but a real social addiction for its betterment.
And then that trip to Ascot, where the Royal venue, was like a transported Earls Court from a Barry McKenzie movie.
Back to Alan Lee in The Times: “Modern sport is conducted under a relentless spotlight that conspires against innocence and revelation. Black Caviar has never been sighted in Britain before nor had any of her races televised live. Hence, this race is a refreshing throwback to times when Australian cricketers or Brazilian footballers would descend cloaked in glamorous mystery.”
It wasn’t, nor should be declared her defining moment, the story behind it (attached here) tells much more, but yes, a crowning coronation before The Queen of a remarkable story, that would only continue thereafter.
Black Caviar would have been 18 today (Sunday). It’s such a rare and special journey that those so close to her have been on, and those vicariously like us have been taken aboard with them, and we can only generously thank them and more so Nelly for it.
I am not one for any religious bent, but those who do may live by those tablets of commandments that start with “there are no other gods before me” and “you shall not make idols.”
Sometimes horses like Black Caviar come before us to test such faith, whilst ensuring we always believe in the fervour of what we truly see and embrace.
And here you can watch perfection, the 25 wins from start to finish. Enjoy. You won't see one like her again.
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