Australian standout Black Caviar, winner of all 19 of her races, eight of them group I events, will be taking a break before coming back to prepare for Royal Ascot in Great Britain.
Black Caviar, who won the group I Coolmore Lightning Stakes at 1,000 meters Feb. 18 at Flemington on six days’ rest, was being considered for the Feb. 25 group I Futurity Stakes at Caulfield and a trip to Dubai in March. But trainer Peter Moody, in a column in the Daily Telegraph, said the 5-year-old mare wouldn’t race anytime soon.
“I put ‘Nelly’ in the paddock at a destination that I’m not disclosing as the mare deserves some peace and quiet for the next couple of weeks,” Moody wrote in the Daily Telegraph. “There’s nothing wrong with her; to the contrary, she’s at the top of her game but it’s all geared around having her at her peak when she flies across to (Great Britain).”
The group I Diamond Jubilee Stakes is scheduled for June 23 at Royal Ascot.
Moody said Black Caviar “will not run in Sydney this autumn, while plans to race her in Dubai and against English superstar Frankel have also been quashed. I’ve got no doubt that Black Caviar could have gone to the Futurity and just won as easily as she did in the Orr Stakes earlier in the month, but it would have been her fourth run in five weeks.
“I had to look at the bigger picture. What would I have had left? She has pulled up 110% from her record-breaking run in the Lightning Stakes, and I wanted to keep it that way. If she heads to the paddock in that condition it’s only going to enhance her prospects for her next campaign.”
Moody in the newspaper said Black Caviar could return in late April for one of two races in Australia before making the trip to Great Britain.
In the Lightning Stakes Black Caviar tied the Australasian record of 19 consecutive wins also held by Desert Gold and Gloaming. Black Caviar, by Bel Esprit out of Helsinge, is owned by a syndicate managed by Neil Werrett and was bred in Victoria by Ric Jamieson.