UK: Caviar 'not here to be beaten'

Friday, 15 June 2012: Black Caviar's team admit they have everything to lose and little to gain when the great Australian mare stakes her reputation in the Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot.

Black Caviar Photo by Racing and Sports

Yet to sail even close to defeat in her 21 starts and already revered in her homeland, Peter Moody's sprinter will have her first overseas start in the six-furlong Group One. Control has been the operative word in her much-publicised trip, as she flew in a specially designed compression suit and is monitored constantly.

"There's nothing for her to add to on top of her record - we know she's a champion and she's unbeaten. If she was 17 from 21 maybe we'd be able to enjoy it more with the pressure off, but she's an unbeaten horse," said Jeff O'Connor, Moody's racing manager.

"She has been here close to a week now. Pete will be here in 24 hours but the boys here and those at home have done a magnificent job. This was always going to be half the battle, getting a horse that had never travelled over here and have her to settle in without any complications."

O'Connor went on: "We never let Pete make decisions lightly, we sat him down and he put it all down on paper and put it to the owners.

"The owners, it was their wish to be here and we thought the best way to get her here and win for them was to maybe dodge (Dubai), keep her at home and not have so many things out of our control - the travel, the tracks we wanted to use, various things came into it.

"Things can only go wrong, that's the way we think about it. If we can take everything that's in our control and cover that then we've done our best. If she's beaten, she's beaten, but we're not here to be beaten."

O'Connor stuck to the party line about decisions as to future races, such as the July Cup, still to be decided.

"The race is an easy one as it's three weeks after Ascot but we're going to sit down and discuss it as we are mindful that we want to come back (to Australia) and race in October," he said.

"We're planning to run in the spring and we haven't got into next year yet. If she was a colt, I think she would have retired a year or two ago but it's different with a mare. She has nothing left to achieve as a racehorse but at the moment she's enjoying the camera and enjoying racing."

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