A full three weeks later, Moody saw Shaun Nolen and thanked him. The jockey said, “What are you talking about? It wasn’t me, it was my brother”. Luke Nolen still remembers the moment with a laugh and, in fact, his ride on Umagold, on May 3, 2003. “We were midfield in an awkward spot, but we got a lovely run through and won convincingly,” he tells us. It’s a little like how a punter never forgets a success. What makes that memory more remarkable, though, is Nolen has ridden in the vicinity of 850 winners for Moody since, a stretch bringing seven Melbourne premierships – four for the trainer and three for the jockey – dozens of Group 1s, and one of the greatest turf stories ever told, Black Caviar. That was a sliding doors moment for my life. I guess a lot of lasting relationships have a unique story as to how they met and started off, and Pete and I have ours. ” “ “It’s amazing how the world turns,” Nolen says. “That was a sliding doors moment for my life. I guess a lot of lasting relationships have a unique story as to how they met and started off, and Pete and I have ours.” They also have one particular epic tale that will last centuries, though their union is about far more than the unbeaten champion who now has the Group 1 she won three times named in her honour, the Black Caviar Lightning Stakes, which comes again on February 18. Moody and Nolen won their first Melbourne premierships in the 2009-10 season, in which Black Caviar won just the first five of her 25. Before her, there was another mighty mare, each man’s best horse up till then. “Typhoon Tracy, what a mare!” says Nolen, who partnered her in her four straight G1 wins of 09-10, and again in a fifth (her sixth overall), in her last start in the 2011 Orr Stakes. “To think – we were both saying how amazing it was to have a horse like her, then Black Caviar comes along.”
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