The death of the legendary Black Caviar at the weekend made national headlines, just as the mare herself did during her remarkable racing career. This week’s Run The Numbers reflects on the unmatched perfection of the legendary sprinter.
When Black Caviar retired in 2013, it seemed many of her records would never be beaten.
Her second TJ Smith win, which proved her farewell, saw her surpass Kingston Town and sit alone on top for overall Group 1 wins, with 15.
That was, famously, her 25th consecutive victory. She had set an Australian record when it came to winning streaks two stars prior in the Lightning Stakes, surpassing Queensland outback hero Miss Petty, while another Queenslander, Picnic In The Park, had claimed 21 straight wins, also in the 1980s.
Gloaming and Desert Gold had both achieved 19 straight wins, albeit on both sides of the Tasman, a century before Black Caviar, while Ajax romped to 18 straight wins in the 1930s before being famously rolled at 1-40 in the Rawson Stakes.
The Peter Moody-trained mare’s winning streak was short of the global mark of Puerto Rican star Camarero, who won 56 consecutive races in the 1950s, and the Hungarian hero Kincsem, who won 54 in the 1880s, but stood alone in modern global racing.
That Australian record of 25 straight wins may have seemed eternal but lasted just over five years thanks to another extraordinary mare, Winx, who would put together a 33-run streak by the time her career had finished.
Chris Waller’s champion had earlier eclipsed Black Caviar’s Group 1 winning total with her 16th elite victory in the 2018 Chipping Norton Stakes. Winx would end up with the same number of Group 1 wins, 25, as Black Caviar had overall victories.
Comparisons between the two are quite pointless. One was a powerhouse sprinter, who dominated from on or near the front, while the other was a weight-for-age hero, who used her remarkable turn of foot to round up and destroy her rivals. But the comparative stats do make for some interesting reading.
Both set track records which still exist to this day, Winx over the famous 2040m of Moonee Valley, Black Caviar over the 1000 metres at Flemington. Remarkably, Black Caviar’s 2013 Lightning Stakes time of 55.42s, which came at her third-to-last start, is 0.62s, or nearly four lengths, faster than the next-best winning time over that track and distance.
Her cumulative margin of victory across 25 starts was 79.7 lengths.
While Winx took several records from Black Caviar, she wasn’t perfect like the star sprinter. A comparison of them after 25 starts of their career sees Winx with 19 victories, 10 of them at Group 1 level, while Black Caviar was perfect with 15 elite wins.
But Winx’s extra longevity, plus the explosion of prize money in the period between the two careers, means she earned 3.3 times the money that Black Caviar did over her career, $26.5 million as compared to a tick under $8 million.
Such has been the surge in prize money allocation in the past 11 years that Black Caviar sits a lowly 26th on all-time Australian prize money earners. It seems as much a disservice as Phar Lap’s earnings of £A66,738 in the 1920s and 1930s.
Adjusting for the value of the 15 Group 1 races Black Caviar has won on their current prize money, she would have earned at least $8.3 million more. On that basis, she would be ranked third overall, rather than 26th, and that is not factoring in that Australia’s richest race, The Everest, would have been tailor-made for the champion sprinter.
(The combined value on current prize money levels of Phar Lap’s 14 victories in races which were subsequently afforded Group 1 status equates to $22.5 million).
Bren O’Brien
That is all the domain of the hypothetical. But it is also worth mentioning that Black Caviar, and the national attention she courted during her career, boosted the profile of thoroughbred racing to a level it had not seen since, arguably, the days of Phar Lap.
There are plenty of reasons wagering returns surged over the past 11 years, driving prize money to double in a decade, but it is arguable that Black Caviar played some part in that. The same argument could be made about Winx.
The narrowest victory of Black Caviar’s 25-start career, her win at Royal Ascot, was the peak of this public interest.
Thousands braved the Melbourne winter to watch her win at a live event at Federation Square. Let’s just think about that for a moment. Not just for a horse race, but for a horse.
Whatever the numbers tell us, that legacy is her greatest.
Black Caviar’s career record
