Saturday 5 November 2011 was Emirates Stakes Day, the fourth and final day of the Melbourne Cup Carnival, Melbourne’s best week of horse racing. This year French horse Dunaden won the Melbourne Cup and the racing club paid appearance money to several overseas stars to ensure the crowds would be good.
Kim Kardashian had been paid a six-figure sum to attend the Emirates Stakes day, but bailed out and went back to the US. At the gates of Flemington TV crews were asking people entering the racecourse who they had come to see and time after time the answer was “Black Caviar.”
Black Caviar is a superstar among the racing fraternity. The mare arrived at the track having raced 15 times for 15 wins and left the track after racing 16 times for 16 wins. Todays race was the Group 1 Patinack Farm Classic over 1200 metres, a weight-for-age race with prizemoney of $1 million. There were only 7 runners in the race as the mighty mare had chased away the opposition. In a race where even the 8th horse would have won $20,000 the trainer of Black Caviar decided to take advantage of the situation and entered 3 other runners from his stable.
The field were all solid performers who have won or been placed in Group level races. Their names are Scenic Blast, Buffering, Response, Mid Summer Music, Curtana and Panipique. If you follow Australian racing you would have heard of them because they are good horses.
Black Caviar did lots of walking before the race. Most horses stand quietly in their stalls waiting for saddle-up time but Black Caviar likes to be moving and her strapper walked her round and round like a prizefighter waiting to step into the ring. Her jockey was Luke Nolen, who has had the privilege of accompanying her for most of her wins.
Behind the starting barriers Black Caviar had a barrier blanket placed on her as she doesn’t like the feel of the metal against her sides. When the horses jump from the starting gates the barrier blanket stays behind. It was a nice even start and Buffering took up the lead over the straight course. Watching the race, Black Caviar never seemed to work any harder than any other horse and Luke Nolen never seemed to move on her back, but at some point in the race he just gave her a little more rein and she lengthened her stride and won in the easiest of manners. Horses behind her were under the whip but she just looked as if she was out for a morning canter as she put a big gap on the field.
Buffering ran second and Mid Summer Music ran third, and the super mare returned to huge applause from the approximately 85,000 racegoers. It was an historic moment as few people will get to see a horse who can win sixteen straight races, mainly at Group level, in their lifetime. The crowd had got what they came for – and Kim Kardashian? – we didn’t miss her one bit!
Jo Jackson - Jo is an Australian writer with an MBA and a B.Sc.(Hons) in botany. She has wanted to write since she first discovered books and currently ...
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