Black Caviar's retirement ensure she remains permanently perfect

WE have lived in extraordinary times. The days of Nelly, the horse that couldn't be beaten.

Black Caviar

WE have lived in extraordinary times. The days of Nelly, the horse that couldn't be beaten.

There are figures in Australian sport that become absorbed into the national consciousness. Simply part of what we know, what we've always known.

Bradman and Phar Lap. Laver and Lindrum. Fraser and Freeman. The giants of this age will be Cadel Evans and Black Caviar.

Australia has never wanted for a champion racehorse, yet Black Caviar's story transcended the dominion of the greats for reasons threefold.

The first was speed. It goes to the very purpose of racing -- be it cars, bikes, humans or horses -- to find the fastest. She proved herself to be the fastest of them all.

The second was invincibility. Long thought fleeting in sport, yet made enduring and ultimately lasting in this case.

The third was the intangible and the most powerful. Black Caviar captured the hearts and minds of the people in a way that can't be manufactured.

This was true from the hard-bitten punters in the soulless TAB to the racing agnostics. People were given an emotional stake when she raced. She came to define racing, then transcend sport entirely, nestling neatly in our culture, the touchstone by which all success was measured.

Think of the two defining gold medals at the London Olympic Games.

Anna Meares rode to the barricades of the velodrome where her family had draped a sign that read "Black Caviar on Wheels". Sally Pearson had long earned the moniker "Blonde Caviar" befitting the fastest Australian female on two legs.

The punters became barrackers, supporting Black Caviar the way they would their football team. They raided the merchandise stands for caps, T-shirts and ties. Few ever paused to contemplate whether salmon was really their colour.

A wagering industry became a sport once more and racing was reminded how great it can be.

In these parts raced Old Jack, Big Red, The Toowoomba Terror, Little Joe, The Goondiwindi Grey, The King, The Man, The Crusher, The Big O, The Fighting Tiger and The Diva.

It's a wondrous dynamic that has confounded overseas observers.

With the announcement of Black Caviar's retirement came an immediate sense of regret that these times are over. That lament is soothed by the glow of legacy.

Permanently perfect. A statistical domination over a sport to rival Bradman's hold on cricket.

A four-year odyssey that began down the Flemington straight when Peter Moody issued the initial instructions to a baby-faced apprentice: "Hold on."

Hold on we did as history was made in the grandest of Newmarket Handicaps, on the rise at Randwick when Hay List seemed too far gone, at the Queensland homecoming when Moody momentarily coveted defeat to relieve the suffocating pressure.

In the dead of night a nation stopped for a horse race completely out of season and held its collective breath. At Royal Ascot it was heart and courage that carried the day.

And she made it back, a remarkable physical feat. Dame Nelly on a farewell tour. For a record at Flemington, a gala at Moonee Valley and a conversion of the last sceptics in Sydney.

These were cherished occasions to which folk either brought their grandkids or stored the memories to share with the generations to follow. Collecting the texture to colour the chalk outline of the most glorious statistic of all -- 25 starts for 25 wins.

For the last time this afternoon Black Caviar will be led from her stable to her playground like an old pug taken back to the stadium to say goodbye. And on behalf of a grateful public, those that come to Caulfield will thank the horse that touched our souls.

Gerard Whateley is the author of Black Caviar: The Horse of a Lifetime.