News

World's best Caviar tough to stomach

20th Feb 2011

Herald Sun - Matt Stewart - Sunday, 20 February 2011

GOOD horses do strange things to those who pay their bills.

Jonathan Bath's guts used to start churning the moment Weekend Hussler's name appeared in the form guide. By race day, Bath was in a lather. You'd swear he'd eaten a dodgy prawn.

He took a bucket to the races just in case the stiff nerve-settler he gulped en route up-turned on him.

Nick Moraitis once half-seriously described Might And Power's spectacular career as a bloody miserable experience.

Moraitis suffered shocking race day nerves, saying he felt faint when it dawned on him how much his horse meant, not only to him but to thousands of fans who put their faith and hard-earned on him.

A handful of Black Caviar's owners bobbed up at Caulfield trackwork a week or so ago. The Lightning Stakes was still more than a week off, so guts weren't yet churning, but butterflies were beginning to flutter.

Pam Hawkes, one of Black Caviar's five principal owners, was asked to describe the experience of owning an unbeaten horse, a hero corporate bookmakers later described as the most popular punters' horse since Phar Lap.

"It's terrifying," Hawkes said.

She said she felt most comfortable in her role in this most important racing story when Black Caviar was nowhere near a track and its expectant crowds.

Her most enjoyable Black Caviar experience had been many weeks earlier, up at Peter Clarke's pre-training farm at Murchison.

"Peter stood at the gate and rattled a tin and she just ambled over," Hawkes said.

"It was just lovely."

There was no tin rattling at Flemington yesterday, nowhere to hide, no bucket for those who appear next to Black Caviar's name in the form guide.

Black Caviar had not just become our latest "best horse", she was unbeaten and unbeatable, backed from long odds-on into even longer odds-on.

She was better than bank interest, but only just.

In all likelihood, some who backed Black Caviar could not have afforded for her to lose.

Marriages may well have ridden with Luke Nolen. Then there's the bigger picture.

It was sad that so few came to see the world's best sprinting horse yesterday. The VRC and Racing Victoria hopelessly missed a rare chance to lure an autumn crowd, doing absolutely nothing to promote Black Caviar.

She might not have dragged them to the track yesterday, but Black Caviar's upcoming odyssey of five Group 1 races in three states will surely gather mainstream momentum. As will trainer Peter Moody's parochial "come to us" attitude to talk she might leave our shores, like So You Think.

She is racing's great ambassador, the hope of a seasonal sport that needs a world champion.

In the back of their minds, these things weigh on people like Pam Hawkes when they arrive at the racetrack.

That burden was lifted a little when Black Caviar paraded in the mounting yard.

The big mare yawned her way around.

Hay List, on the other hand, appeared almost too fit; tucked up and toey.

Guts would have churned in the owners stand when King Pulse suffered from some sort of memory flashback as he was being loaded in the gates. The last time King Pulse raced at Flemington, he freaked out in the horse tunnel during last year's Newmarket Handicap lightning strike and almost killed himself.

King Pulse refused to be loaded, was vet-checked, trotted up and shoved in the gates.

All the while, Black Caviar, who'd had a bit of a history of poor getaways, dropped her head and waited.

Even for the owners, the race was painless.

Nolen had a throttle hold on Black Caviar until the 300m. He released his grip a millimetre and the race was in the bag. Just like that. Hay List went half the journey, then hoisted the flag.

The brutality of the execution appeared to shock Hay List's trainer, John McNair, who had believed this time there would be a clash rather than a killing.

McNair was devastated, last seen heading to the bar.

"She brained us. We can't go through that again," he said.

There was obviously joy in the winner's enclosure, but it dead-heated with relief.

Gary Wilkie, another part-owner who admitted he'd slept just once in the past fortnight, offered some perspective on why people who own champions lose sleep, and occasionally need buckets: "It's probably the luckiest thing you're going to get in your life."