Black Caviar has settled well in Brisbane

After five days getting acclimatised to Brisbane Black Caviar is settling in perfectly to her new home north of the border.

She’s being kept under guard at Eagle Farm Racecourse in a specially built stable complete with full CCTV footage.

Peter Moody will be by her side all week to make sure her preparation goes as smooth as it always has and to oversee her track work.

After being forgivably weary after the long trip north she’s now starting to really hit her straps.

“She was on the road for 10½ hours to Dubbo, where she had a stopover,” Moody said.

“After the rest she was back on the float for the trip to Brisbane.

“Everything went perfectly and she hasn’t missed a beat since she arrived here.”

It’s hard to ignore the wave of ‘Black Caviar Fever’ sweeping across Brisbane with club officials hoping to literally pack out Doomben Racecourse when she has her first run in the Group 1 BTC Cup on May 14.

Moody is working hard to keep her sheltered from much of the attention including doing her track work under the cover of darkness in the first few hours of the morning.

There are 16 horses still in the hunt for the BTC Cup which could make it one of the toughest fields she’s ever faced.

Peter Moody is aware of this and doesn’t want to slacken off work in the slightest and risk losing her amazing unbeaten run which now stands at 12.

That means she’s being worked daily and the intensity of the exercise will probably increase over the next few days.

Her movements yesterday saw her brought from her stable by Pat Bell at 3:30am to avoid any other traffic or unwanted prying eyes.

Bell then put her through some light work across the dirt track which was followed by a couple of laps in the equine pool located in the same Eagle Farm precinct.

She was put back in her stable for the rest of the morning before being called on again at 2pm.

Bell repeated the morning routine with a short walk and two more laps of the pool.

“The set-up here is very similar to what she has at home at Caulfield in Melbourne,” Moody said.

“We stable on the track and only have to walk 50m to the pool. She loves her swims.

“She will do some strong exercise on Saturday and Tuesday. It will be five weeks between races by the time she gets to the BTC Cup.”

Hay List once again shapes as her main rival but just who will be in the mount is once again up in the air.

Her regular rider Glyn Schofield is injured which saw Shane Scriven booked after he had a suspension halted pending an appeal.

If that wasn’t messy enough it now appears connections want to either bring back Glen Boss from Singapore for the ride or offer it to Chris Munce.

Both Boss and Munce have won on the horse, Boss most recently in the All Aged Stakes but Munce last year during the Winter Carnival.

While it doesn’t affect Hay List as such, it does highlight the desperation of the camp to finally get a win over their nemesis of 2011.