Perfect end to a champion career for Black Caviar

JOB done. There were the usual post-race aches and pains but ultimately the curtain came down with perfect choreography.

JOB done.

There were the usual post-race aches and pains but ultimately the curtain came down with perfect choreography.

The horse was fit and well. Glowing. Anything less would have left a bitter taste not just on her own career but on a sport that does not always put its best foot forward or deliver the right exit strategies.

Too many racehorses, too many champions, race on into oblivion.

The end had to be perfect for the most loved, the most humanised, of all racehorses.

"She has been such a great shining light. We just thought let's just stop now before something goes haywire. We just thought it was job done," explained Peter Moody."

She could have raced on.

If it was all about maximising, there were easy pickings in Brisbane and Sydney.

Victory parade: Black Caviar and Luke Nolen return to scale. Picture: Rohan Kelly

There was the lure of Royal Ascot, to win with a leg in the air rather than the desperate dive of 2012.

To end it at Ascot would have satisfied the owners, given them a chance to prove their horse was as fast as she was brave.

It would have given Luke Nolen a chance to - finally - shrug that monkey that had clung to his back since that infamous brain fade.

But none of these things would have been for Black Caviar, for the animal whose speed and courage put those around her on the luckiest of stages.

The greatness of Black Caviar is on the scoreboard and in cherished memories. Her importance, her reach, might be yet to play out.

It was never as effortless as it seemed but it was monumental.

Born big with wonky knees, all that weight on those little pins, yet unbeaten in 25 starts. Always niggled by aches and pains, yet smooth as silk, with a stride that made you gasp.

An out-of-form champion before the Queen.

The only champion of a modern era to pack houses not just in Melbourne but in towns like Adelaide, where racing is simply dead.

A horse who transformed racetracks into seas of salmon and black.

The importance, rather than the greatness, of Black Caviar will be in her footprint.

Peter Moody, a tough man who didn't bother to brush away his tears yesterday, said he hoped Black Caviar would leave a significant impression not just on the racetrack but on society and its regard for horse racing.

He hoped, rather than predicted, that racing "would continue onwards and upwards" via a new era of champions.

Black Caviar will leave either a lasting legacy for racing or be its Halley's Comet.

People will become hooked or they will not unreasonably regard her as a fleeting one-off, a magnificent aberration.

The story that began with a few mates on a houseboat, the idea that sharing a racehorse might bring a close group even closer, does not entirely end here.

The owners, now closer than ever according to managing owner Neil Werrett, have had their time on racing's revolving stage.

They will breed from Black Caviar and race all her progeny but history, and reality, says the dizzy days are over.

They are not sad, but relieved. "We're happy, we're all good. It was time," said Jill Taylor.

Moody, such an important part of this story, as trainer and articulator, realises he will never train a horse even half as good, but his alarm will still go off at 3.05 every morning; the eternal quest.

Moody has a knack for explaining things. Black Caviar, he said, can now shrug off the things we've attached to her, like fame, and go back to basics.

"She can go have a roll around and play in the mud. She deserves a break and just go wander off into the sunset," he said.