THE decision to rest Black Caviar this spring instead of chasing purses and bonuses of more than $2 million is a wise one, as should the pending announcement on her racetrack future, reports Andrew Eddy in an opinion piece in The Age.He says: The end comes quickly for elite athletes, for various reasons. Injury, wear and tear and mental tiredness, but, for the very best, other rare factors such as the absence of mountains to climb can bring down the curtain just as swiftly. Black Caviar falls va
THE decision to rest Black Caviar this spring instead of chasing purses and bonuses of more than $2 million is a wise one, as should the pending announcement on her racetrack future, reports Andrew Eddy in an opinion piece in The Age.
He says: The end comes quickly for elite athletes, for various reasons. Injury, wear and tear and mental tiredness, but, for the very best, other rare factors such as the absence of mountains to climb can bring down the curtain just as swiftly. Black Caviar falls vaguely into the first category and squarely into the second.
Today, Black Caviar turns six - an age for a racehorse where improvement is difficult to find and rarely obtained. If she is to race on in February, she will be five months short of seven. She will have come off an extended break from racing following an arduous yet ultimately successful international foray to Royal Ascot. She will be facing a new generation of brash, young sprinters yet to be taxed by the rigours of training and racing.
The great mare's trainer, Peter Moody, and her owners are likely to delay a decision on Black Caviar's racing future until September when they gather at the Racehorse Of The Year Awards where they are certain to be engaged centre stage for most of the night. It would be the ideal platform to announce that the greatest sprinter this country and the world has seen, will not race again.
There is one overwhelming reason why Black Caviar is unlikely to again face the starter: her unbeaten status must be protected. Her achievements - and there are numerous aside from her 22 straight wins and 12 group 1s - will be immediately tarnished if she races again and is beaten. The fact that Black Caviar has never been beaten, whether it be at the races, in trials, jumpouts and trackwork, underpins all that is great about the mare. To take that away would be to dissolve the aura around her and irreversibly deflate her reputation as being unbeatable. (www.theage.com.au).