Racing: Black Caviar – Australian champion mare succumbs to hoof disease

Black Caviar in action. In death, the mare has been remembered for her great racing days. Photo / Getty Images

Two of the hardest mares to ever beat on the racetrack have both lost the ultimate battle to the same enemy off it.

The racing world was shocked on Saturday when it was announced one of the fastest horses of all time Black Caviar, had to be humanely put down the day before her 18th birthday.

The wonder Australian mare, who was unbeaten in 25 starts, was put to sleep hours after giving birth to a colt by Snitzel.

Black Caviar had developed laminitis, the hoof disease that often makes it near impossible for horses to live pain-free and is usually degenerative.

An emotional trainer Peter Moody, who was at Caulfield, said the news of her passing hit him hard.

“You don’t think it affects you,” he said. “But you are being stupid not to think it doesn’t. It’s impossible not to get attached to most animals - let alone one like her.”

Moody explained there was no chance of saving the fastest horse Australasian racing has ever seen.

“She had a milk infection about a week ago and we just treated it like you do with all broodmares, But, like a lot of treatments, it went straight to her feet,” he said.

“Basically, it killed her feet.”

Laminitis is also what claimed the life of New Zealand’s greatest mare of this century, Sunline, who also had to be put down for the same humane reasons in 2009.

She was able to be transported to Ellerslie in her final hours and is buried in a rose garden there near the stables, a statue marking her final resting place.

Like so many things in the modern era, real greatness is quickly replaced by the next wonder thing, with Goats (greatest of all time) appearing so regularly that Goat has replaced champion as the most overused title in sporting history.

But if you find yourself with seven minutes to spare today take out your phone and search for “Black Caviar’s wins” and have a watch.

It is mesmerising and, both being sprinters, the closest thing you will see to a female equine Usain Bolt.

Cookie time

Former star jockey Grant Cooksley is going to have to get used to something he really doesn’t enjoy this spring: talking.

Cooksley has a sharp mind and insightful comments, but likes to keep his conversations short, but as the hands-on half of the training partnership he shares with Bruce Wallace, he has to be the go-to man for stable updates.

Punters are going to be wanting plenty more of those from The Iceman as the Wallace/Cooksley stable could be in for a lucrative end to 2024.

They produced a very smart 3-year-old in So Naive to win the $100,000 Cambridge Stud Breeders Stakes at Ruakākā on Saturday and he is $16 for the 2000 Guineas at Riccarton.

That is over the odds as he is not only a progressive horse who is undoubtedly yet to reach his ceiling, but three of the horses ahead of him in the Guineas market - Yaldi, Red Sea and Nuclezor (the latter sold to Hong Kong) - are all but certain to not head to Riccarton.

Not only did the stable win the Breeders Stakes with So Naive, but they had the eye-catching runner-up in Toruk Makto who charged home late and could also be a group race player.

Their riches don’t stop there as Queen Elizabeth Cup winner Trust In You also resumed in the 1400m open on Saturday, which he found short of his best, but he could still develop into one of out better stayers this season.

And their stable star Sacred Satono is $5 equal favourite for the Waikato Stud Foxbridge Plate at Te Rapa this Saturday after a dazzling trial win last week.

That gives Cooksley and Wallace serious horses in three very different types of racing over coming months and means Cooksley’s phone may keep ringing far more often than he would like.

Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s racing editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.