Black Caviar latest: all’s well at Cliché Lodge

Despite what you might read on Racing Victoria’s website, Black Caviar can’t talk – we have it on good authority that her blog is ghosted!

Her trainer Peter Moody is the man who does the talking for her (but not the ghost writing) and he has said many times he is running out of things to say.

Still, he dutifully butters up before each run to tell the media how his mighty mare is going – the latest report: all is well – and to help promote the meeting. Today, at his Caulfield stables called Cliché, no, Amalfi Lodge, he also tempted fate, counted his chickens before they hatched, even put the car(t) before the horse.

Moody, who will win a $134,000 Mercedes wagon if his runners top $1 million in prizemoney for the night season that ends with the G1 William Reid Stakes (1200m) at Moonee Valley on Friday, jumped into the driver’s seat for a photo opportunity, albeit not feeling all that comfortable.

He will earn the prize if Black Caviar (b m 4, Bel Esprit-Helsinge, by Desert Sun (GB)) wins the William Reid, worth $300,000 to the winner, and one of his other three entries runs in the first eight, or one of his five other acceptors for the meeting earns a few grand in another race.

TAB Sportsbet’s early market says the car is as good as in Moody’s driveway permanently. It has Black Caviar favourite at $1.10 and his other entries inside the top eight of a very lopsided market – Master Harry shares the second line at $15, Panipique sits on the third line at $21 (although she might run in the G1 Sportingbet Classic for mares over 1200m at Morphettville on Saturday instead) and Hinchinbrook is on the fifth line at $31.

Moody said there was no “stacking”. He admitted he would be happy to have the car but said, “we’re not gonna risk any horse for it”.

He said the Newmarket win at Flemington on March 12, Black Caviar’s record 10th without loss and achieved under handicap conditions, had been draining to horse and trainer, but had taken away the pressure that had hovered in the lead-in to that race.

He added, and he said he wasn’t being cheeky, that other runs at weight for age, including Friday night’s, should be “the icing on the cake from here on in”… unless someone “threw a curve ball”.

And he also said the hoopla that accompanied the Newmarket, such as signing autographs after the meeting – that’s him, not Black Caviar, who we have said doesn’t do her own writing – had made him appreciate how people had taken Black Caviar to heart.

Racing Victoria and the Melbourne clubs appreciate her, too, because she has delivered all that was promised as, post So You Think, the one champion of the Melbourne Festival of Racing.

Flemington has hosted Lightning and Newmarket wins and at its big finale the Moonee Valley Racing Club is keen to exceed its night-time crowd high of 8000 this season – despite the football and the grand prix cars, under 10,000 would disappoint.

Moody did not buy into whether Black Caviar or spring star So You Think, who is being prepared in Ireland for a northern hemisphere campaign, should be Australia’s horse of the year, other than saying of the mood at the moment, “we’re very fashionable”.

He said wasn’t fussed by extras such as awards unless they provided something to eat when you’re hungry. Prompted, he added, “or to drive”.