A Special Day in Paradise. Hailing the Queen. Yet Again...

May 16, 2011

Today I will again commence with a quote, and yes, yet again, it was written by my friend, the very great writer, Les Carlyon.

"that cliche they call the romance of the turf. This is the fine threat. This romance, this pursuit of dreams, is what makes the turf special. If you like gambling, there are poker machines. If you like speed contests, late-night television is frequently a snarl of Formula One fury.

The turf is more than these things. There must, for instance, be a romance, or at least some strange force, which propels otherwise intelligent people out of bed two hours before dawn to work four horses, all of them fundamentally flawed, such flaws ranging from the inability to out-run a fat man to four bad legs, a soft palate, and a tendency to bleed easily.

The ultimate tease, you see, is this: on he turf in Australia, and unlike quests for fountains of youth and haily grails, the dreams do sometimes come true".

Les Carlyon. August 1988.

I'm back sitting at my computer in Canberra this morning. It's cold today, and was freezing overnight. Minus 6 the bureau site tells me. My computer sits in the lounge room, as we don't have a proper study, and the heater, which has been on all night, is struggling to warm this little corner, so I've just (again) turned it up as high as it goes. But event the cold does little to stop the warm feeling inside that came from Saturday and Sunday. My flight left Brisbane at 3.15pm, and I traveled via Sydney, so didn't arrive home until after 7pm. It was nice to see my lovely car Dan at the airport, although he was cold, and I drove home reflecting on the greatness I had seen. And some special, and very intimate moments that occurred over the weekend as well. Because it's not often that you're lucky enough to see, and experience some of the things that we experienced over the weekend.

At the heart of this post, is again, a very special thoroughbred. She's appeared here before, many times now. And her images are littered throughout the press at the moment. But Saturday, and then Sunday, was just truly very special. I will get on to Sunday in my next posting. For now I will limit this to Saturday's experience. The horse I speak of, of course, is Black Caviar, who was back from a brief freshen up, and a long float trip, to contest the G1 BTC Cup at Doomben Racecourse over 1200m. She was attempting her 13th successive victory, and also to sit alongside the legendary Kingston Town, who won 6 Group 1 races in the 1979-1980 racing season. Weekend Hussler equalled this feat in 2007-2008, although some critics, probably including myself, argue that due to the outbreak of Equine Influenza in the spring of 2007, that this had a bearing on his ability to match this feat, with so many good horses either stranded in Sydney, or infected with the influenza.

I've never been to Doomben before, and so wanted to get there early to work out the track, find a spot in the press room, and just familiarise myself with how things worked, and the layout of the course. It was a good thing to do, as the course was quickly packed to the rafters. I managed to squeeze into the downstairs pressroom and caught up with Noel Pascoe, who's one of the finest, and longest serving photographers in the industry. Ross Stevenson walked around the course with me, showing me the various trickeries that Doomben presented (it's very like the Valley in many ways) and this was invaluable, because it's little, and tight, and with 20,000 people in there, movement became problematic!

You could feel the tension rising as the hour of the race approached. The crowd grew steadily thicker, and by the time race 7 was upon us, it was literally almost impossible to get around in both the parade ring, and then inside the mounting yard/winning post area itself. When the mare entered the track, the crowd gave her a rousing reception. There was drama in the barriers as Albert the Fat, who won for Paul Messara last year, reared and almost flipped over. He was taken out, and pronounced fit to run, and when the field was released, Black Caviar began as is her custom now, in a slightly tardy manner. Hay List went straight to the front, with the mare in third spot on the rail. At the 600m mark however Nolen moved her forward and she joined Hay List and Buffering, three wide, and made the home turn awkwardly. Nolen balanced her though and asked her to go, and she just powered by the big gelding, and won going away.

As usual, my heart was pounding. Someone asked me if I get excited when photographing a big race. My answer was yes, and it's NOT a good thing, as my heart, when it's a horse I really like, pounds so badly it can cause me to wobble off the horse I'm following. Today was no exception, but largely I was happy with the sequence. And the scenes that followed after the race and afterwards, will not easily be forgotten.

It was indeed a privilege to be there, and in the presence of such company.

Black Caviar with her strapper Donna Fisher keep on the move in the float section of Doomben racecourse. The crowds were so thick around her stall that Moody had her be lead around here.