sportinglife.com: Shane, Black Caviar is two from two this season, what have we learned from those races?
Shane Anderson: The scary thing is we've learned she is better than ever. Her performances in the two starts, first of all in the Australia Stakes over 1200 metres and then 1400 metres or seven furlongs in the Orr, show she has gone on from what we've seen in the past. This could be a very special year for her providing Peter Moody can keep her sound through the campaign as she'll be kept busy. Physically she looks better than ever after a short break from the Winter Carnival, she looks amazing.
sportinglife.com: What are the plans for her now?
SA: She could race this weekend, although that hasn't been confirmed 100 per cent yet. Peter Moody is open to racing her three weeks in succession, all at Grade One level. She won the CF Orr Stakes at the weekend, is scheduled to run in the first leg of the Global Sprint Challenge, the Lightning Stakes at Flemington on Saturday and if she comes through that ok, will back up the weekend after in the Futurity back up to 1400 metres.
These races are all weight-for-age and she won the Lightning Stakes very easily last year from Hay List. Peter Moody has said provided she is fit and well she will run this weekend but he won't take a final decision until just before official scratching time around 0715 local time here in Australia.
sportinglife.com: Do they do anything different tactically over the longer trip of 1400 metres?
SA: The best thing we saw at the weekend was that in the 1000m and 1200m sprint races she always looked a little tardy out of the gate. Perhaps the slightly slower tempo of the race over 1400m helped but she began better than she's ever done and that gave Luke Nolen a variety of options and he chose to trail what was a relatively modest early pace. The key was would she relax as well as she does in the sprint races when they go a faster tempo and the great news was she did.
sportinglife.com: Peter Moody is winning a lot of admirers for his handling of Black Caviar, how high profile was he before she burst onto the scene?
SA: He was just emerging as about the biggest force in Australian racing before Black Caviar. He had trained a previous Australian Horse Of The Year in Typhoon Tracy who was a mare who was at her best from 1200m to a mile. He won a Victorian Derby back in 2001 and that was when he first emerged on the scene. He was able to win Group One races and is leading the evolution of trainers over here. For a long, long time we were dominated by a small number of trainers, the likes of Bart Cummings, Gai Waterhouse, Tommy Smith, Lee Freedman and Colin Hayes.
Moody's training method is different, he's quite ruthless when it comes to the horses in his team. If he feels a horse is not up to winning races in metropolitan areas and going on to feature success, then they go. He's open and honest about it, that's why he restricts his numbers to around 70 horses in work but nearly all of them are capable of winning feature races.
sportinglife.com: For British fans, how much better than the likes of Choisir and Takeover Target is Black Caviar?
SA: They're not in the same league as Black Caviar who we consider to be the best sprinter of the modern era and quite possibly the greatest sprinter we've ever had. What she's doing in her races is quite extraordinary. Her international rating shows she's something very special and she has lengths in hand of everything over here.
Hay List is our second best sprinter, and she regularly beats him by two, three, four lengths, but if he came over to Royal Ascot without her he'd be the best sprinter we'd ever sent over outside perhaps Takeover Target. Miss Andretti was a champion sprinter here who enhanced her reputation over at Royal Ascot but those horses aren't in the same class as Black Caviar and if she arrives in the UK fit and at the top of her game, you could see one of the great performances in the meeting's long and illustrious history.
Her mid-race fractions when she's asked to quicken are quite extraordinary. She ran her last 600 metres on Saturday, virtually under a stranglehold, in 32. 9 seconds and wasn't out of second gear. She's capable of doing the most freakish things when given the opportunity to.
sportinglife.com: Coral have Frankel as the 4-6 favourite in their Royal Ascot match bet with Black Caviar. How would you price it up?
SA: It would almost be 5/6 each of two for me. The reality is we just don't know. It's easy for one group to say that Frankel is superior, it's just as easy for another to say Black Caviar is better. When you look at the bare facts both are unbeaten and neither have been really tested. Until they clash neither will have an equal. It's a folly to say one horse has something over the other.
Black Caviar stepped up to seven furlongs at the weekend and did it just as easily as she has over sprint trips suggesting a strongly-run mile wouldn't be beyond her. Peter Moody was even quoted in the media in Australia on Monday suggesting that if she stayed here a race like the Cox Plate over ten furlongs could even be on the radar. She's gone from leading in her races to being a stalker and it would be a mouthwatering clash at Royal Ascot, let's hope we get it!
sportinglife.com: Finally what has Black Caviar done for the profile of horse racing in Australia?
SA: It's been extraordinary and a good example came on Saturday. That meeting would traditionally get a crowd of around 7,000, she ran there and they had well over 20,000. She's on the front pages of the newspapers, she's on the TV news, radio, everyone wants a piece of the action. She has her on website, www.blackcaviar.net.au, her own twitter account @blackcaviar 2006, she has merchandise, there's never been anything like it over here.
The business of Black Caviar has really developed, the growth in her brand has been impressive, and the racing clubs and administrators of racing are looking at how to use the champions to make racing more attractive to the wider audiences. You guys have seen it through Racing For Change and what Frankel did last year, now we're experiencing exactly the same with this mare.
