Champion mare Black Caviar, widely regarded as the best race horse in the world,

is the celebrity everyone wants to see as she goes for her 13th straight win today.

In Chasing a Dream, Les Carlyon wrote “The racehorse is spendidly unscientific. The great ones do what they shouldn’t be able to do. The racehorse is proof that two plus two can still come up nine”.

Of Caviar in Black

by Rupert McCall

I filled my plate with Phar Lap; put some Bernborough on the side
My champagne glass was Rising Fast in toasting Tulloch’s ride
I lapped up Manikato and I craved for Kingston Town
I dined on Might and Power as I drank the Diva down
A Saintly slice of Sunline had the most immortal flavour
Octagonal with Northerly, the taste could not be braver
But then they served another course on racing’s mighty track
They served a dish of Caviar, of Caviar in Black

And her texture was colossal as the magic was digested
Her jet black spots emblazoned on a rider, salmon-crested
There was something in my stomach that I’d never had before
A feeling unforgettable that came out with a roar!
My mind flashed back to Phar Lap in the day of the depression
It suddenly occurred to me – she’d made the same impression
And the shiver was electric as it galloped down my back
When I saw the speed of Caviar, of Caviar in Black

And behind her and aboard her were the diamonds in the rough
A horseman from Wyandra who was made of solid stuff
And a pilot from Manangatang with hands and heels like wings
You wake up one cold morning and behold, the new day brings!
It brings a dawn so powerful – an appetite so strong
The punters thought they’d seen it all… but then she came along
You spy a humble hurricane and hear the lightning crack
And you know that it’s the Caviar, the Caviar in Black

And I want to be beside her when she hurtles down the aisle
I have to tell my grandkids how she made a poor man smile
How she made me feel a rich man in my hey day, in my prime
It needs to start, instinctively, with ‘once upon a time’
Horses have that special way of making us feel free
Despite their proud connections, they belong to you and me
And that’s an epic quality she never seemed to lack
It’s a simple twist of Caviar, of Caviar in Black

I ventured to the racecourse just to see her in the flesh
Expectation, history and inspiration mesh
And they culminate in something that reverberates with pride
In the undulating beauty of her mesmerizing stride
For beyond the sacred stopwatch that defines her famous place
The telling of the story lives on every person’s face
And the day will overwhelm me when I cast my memory back
Just to say I saw the Caviar, the Caviar in Black.

{Images by Bronwen Healy Photography}