I Almost Withdrew Her!

It was revealed Black Caviar, the Australian wonder mare unbeaten in 22 starts, was almost scratched the evening before The Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot in June. Her trainer Peter Moody felt his stable star was not quite herself on the eve of 22nd June. He felt the need to ring his wife Sarah that evening to express his worry and to discuss the idea of withdrawing her.

Sarah said: 'You've got it right 21 times before but don't blame me if you stuff it up now!' In true Australian style.

Moody told a reporter: 'How close was I to scratching her? I don't know, but when you get a horse like her you get protective of her record and when they have soundness issues it probably always crosses your mind. At the end of the day I convinced myself she was good enough to get the job done and thankfully she was.

After her narrow success at Royal Ascot in June it appeared that Black Caviar wasn't her dominant self.

Moody continued: 'I possibly pushed her too hard before the race'.

Black Caviar is back in light training and has 21 days to prove to those who know her best that she wants to keep on racing. If she does she will come back to her regular work in November with a view to appear in the autumn (Australian autumn).

The mouth-watering clash between her and Frankel is almost certainly not going to happen. Although having watched the greatest horse of all time that is Frankel this summer, it's hard to argue that he would comfortably defeat the mare at whatever distance they were to compete over.

 However, whoever this guy is commentating on her 20th consecutive win in the above video has either got Tourette's, or can hardly see through his rose tinted glasses!

The commentary goes, I quote: 'She looks at the 30,000 strong crowd and says Jeez I'm good - no I'm not good, I'm the best you have ever seen in world!!'

Alright mate. Firstly, keep a lid on it. Secondly, watch Frankel's victories this summer and get your head out of your back side and smell the coffee.

Admittedly the above race was run before Frankel's excursions this summer, but the commentary is so over the top that it makes the above counter-argument irrelevant in my opinion.

She's good, very very good in fact. Although, nothing has ever been better than Frankel since ratings began. To say she is the 'best you have ever seen in the world' is entirely ludicrous and I'm glad his opinion hasn't been proven correct. Can you imagine the load of tripe he would come out with if that was the case!

Frankel. The best ever, without question.

Interestingly if we are measuring who is better by comparing the amount of Grade 1 victories each has won, regardless what horses they beat or have not beaten, Black Caviar is 3 ahead of Frankel.

1. Black Caviar: 12 Grade 1 victories from 22 starts.
2. Frankel: 9 Grade 1 victories from 13 starts.

But then if you are measuring Grade 1 victories to number of starts percentage:

1. Black Caviar: 55%
2. Frankel: 69%

At the end of the day you can discuss it until the sun sets. The correct conclusion is, undisputed, Frankel is the horse that the ridiculous commentary should be describing!