IN: BLACK CAVIAR
ALMOST OUT: JOCKLEY LUKE NOLEN
Black Caviar is the best and most well-known horse in the world and loved by all of Australia.
She’s a national treasure and the pride of a nation.
Forget the Melbourne Cup: This is a horse that stops a nation every time it races- and wins.
On Saturday, it ran overseas for the first time- at Royal Ascot- and was meant to blow away her moderate looking group of rivals.
For a few seconds, she looked like digging in an inning, albeit not as easily as one thought.
Then, for some inexplicable reason, regular jockey Luke Nolen momentarily eased the great black mare down.
Nolen is a very good jockey- in Oz- but he is no Frankie Dettori, William Buick or Ryan Moore who was at his brilliant best on Sea Moon and became Ascot’s leading jockey just ahead of the also brilliant Buick.
As Nolen was either over-confident or suffering from a lapse in concentration and thought he had the race won, the horses which came second and third- both French- surged along the inside.
Sensing trouble on her inside, it was Black Caviar who woke his rider up and made it to the winning post to win- by a head.
It was oh-so-close.
Was it a convincing victory? Well, Black Caviar won its 22nd consecutive win- and her first on foreign soil- and after a grueling 30-hour trip from Melbourne. .
However, after all the hype and great expectations, it was something of a hollow victory though all credit to the horse.
Black Caviar won the race- the Diamond Jubilee Stakes.
Luke Nolen almost lost the race and is a very lucky boy that she did the work he didn’t.
If Black Caviar had lost, well, one shudders to think how Luke Nolen would be remembered in horse racing history: The Man Who Got Black Caviar Beat.
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