Bart Cummings says unbeaten mare Black Caviar may have to go overseas to prove she is the world’s best sprinter.
Cummings has questioned the quality of Australian sprinters this season while suggesting the Peter Moody-trained four-year-old still had to improve her Group One record considerably to rank alongside champion sprinter Maybe Mahal who he trained in the late 1970s.
Maybe Mahal won seven Group One races including the 1978 Newmarket Handicap.
Black Caviar will attempt to eclipse Maybe Mahal’s modern-day weight-carrying record for a mare by 1.5kg when she contests Saturday’s Newmarket with 58kg.
“They say she is the best in world and she might be, but I just question the standard of sprinters running at this point in time,” Cummings said.
“She is far too good for what she is racing against at the moment but her opposition, maybe, is not the standard we have seen in the past.
“Until she goes overseas and wins there that will prove it (if she’s best in the world) for sure.”
Moody has ruled out taking her overseas this season and issued the challenge for the world to come to her.
Cummings said that weight would not trouble Black Caviar if she was a genuine weight-for-age sprinter.
“Weight is no object if you’ve got Group One ability at weight-for-age,” Cummings said.
He said Maybe Mahal had the record on the board but Black Caviar still had to get there in terms of Group One wins.
Maybe Mahal’s weight-for-age Group One wins included two Lightning Stakes.
She gave away weight in Group One handicaps when she won the Newmarket, the Doomben 10,000, the Doncaster, George Adams Hcp (Emirates Stakes) and the Craven A Stakes (Patinack Farm Classic).
“There is nothing wrong with Black Caviar but I have had better horses who have won more Group Ones,” Cummings said.
“She might be able to catch up in time as she has a couple years left, I would imagine.”
Shaftesbury Avenue, also trained by Cummings, was the last Newmarket winner with 58kg and Cummings likes Black Caviar’s chances of equalling that feat.
“I don’t think her weight is any disadvantage whatsoever,” he said.
“She is big and strong and beats the opposition quite easily.”
Luke Nolen has ridden 14 Group One winners since his first on the Cummings-trained Wonderful World in the 2006 Caulfield Guineas and rates Black Caviar the best horse he has ridden.
He said that only twice in six of her nine wins had he used the whip on her and then only sparingly.
Nolen said he expected the Newmarket to unfold in much the same way as the Lightning Stakes did last start.
“When you analyse her races and look at the times she is running and the ease she does it, it is a little bit frightening,” he said.
“She has ticked over nicely since the Lightning and improved in condition and come on a little in the coat.
“I will be hunted more or less but most of the speed is drawn underneath me and I don’t think she will forced to carry 58kg the whole way. She will be able to have a rest.
“When I decide to use her explosive sprint, I will be able to do what I like.”
AAP TURF
