Racing: Wonderful mare silences knockers

Black Caviar. Photo / Getty Images

It was classic Australiana.

Everyone knew they couldn't beat Black Caviar in Saturday's A$1 million T J Smith at Randwick.

So the Sydney journalists tried the only avenue open to them to try and beat the Victorian - psychology.

To apply pressure, they widely quoted New South Wales trainers as saying Black Caviar had been getting things too easy in Melbourne with races run to suit and riders showing exaggerated respect for the champion mare.

If they had all been living deep in a cave in the hills of Afghanistan for the past two years, not one of them could have believed that.

But they tried.

It didn't work. Bad luck beat Phar Lap, but Black Caviar's unbeaten win No25 was as close to being written into the record books on Friday as it is this morning.

Trainer Peter Moody might look like a rough, tough, knockabout country Queenslander but he's as slick as any on the verbals.

He is a master at defusing criticism without offering offence.

The first mouthful he uttered after the Black Caviar cheering subsided at Randwick on Saturday was: "The Sydney journos reckoned that's the best field she's met - I hope they remember that tomorrow."

The unencumbered belief in the world's greatest mare overtook even rider Luke Nolan, who has never wasted words.

"They were going to make her earn it today, but she still kicked their arses.

"If there are still any knockers out there today they can come and see me and I'll sort them out."

Surely there couldn't be.

Racing is not a game to burn your bridges in and you never say never, but surely in the next 20 years we're not going to see another as good as Black Caviar.

You mention the name Black Caviar and most think: "Yeah she's unbeaten".

But to measure her true greatness you have to fully analyse exactly what she's doing to truly magnificent racehorses.

How would you like to be Hay List, a sprinter who in any other era would be regarded as a near champion?

Take Black Caviar away and Hay List has beaten top-class fields by wide margins, but the poor bloke can't get within lengths of the mare.

He's completely demoralised.

Anyone who has won a race, any race, will tell you there is no greater feeling.

That certainly encompassed James McDonald moments after winning the A$1.5 million Australian Derby on Saturday on New Zealander It's A Dundeel.

The opposition wasn't as good, as we mentioned in the Weekend Herald, but the margin was greater than Black Caviar's.

This was a bullet train versus a pushbike.

"He can do everything - a Cox Plate, yes, run 3200m and win a Melbourne Cup," said an extremely excited McDonald.

That sounds fanciful, but let's hope McDonald is right, because we haven't had too many horses in a decade capable of making the Melbourne Cup field, much less the victory ceremony.

Saturday left us with many thoughts - the greatest being wouldn't it be wonderful if Black Caviar went back to England in her current form?