Caviar Noire back into winning form at Cambridge

By Jordyn Bublitz

It might not have looked likely on paper, but Caviar Noire turned the tables in style on Thursday night, delivering a gutsy upset in the Charlie Hunter Our Patron Handicap Trot at Cambridge Raceway.

Trained and driven by Owen Gillies, the six-year-old mare went into the 2200m assignment with modest expectations, having failed to feature in her previous starts. But Gillies was quietly confident she wasn’t far away from turning things around.

“Coming into it, I wasn’t too worried about her form,” he said. “You can’t really count a couple of those runs where she’s stood on the mark, and I thought her Ruakaka run was actually really good. She got back on a hard track to make ground on but kept whacking away.”

From the stand, Caviar Noire did everything right early, stepping cleanly and settling on the fence behind tearaway leader Yurok.

The decisive moment came approaching the final 400 metres, with the leader starting to tire, Gillies eased the mare off the pegs and into the clear, setting up a home-straight showdown with race favourite Luca.

“I thought she was beat at the top of the straight,” he admitted. “She got a good trip and got off the fence at the right time, but I didn’t think we had the speed to beat Luca.”

As the pair locked together in the run home, the favourite began to lose composure under pressure, and Gillies was quick to capitalise.

“He’s a smart trotter, but when he started hopping and skipping I knew that was our chance. We probably didn’t have the speed to go past him otherwise, so we just had to apply the pressure.”

What followed was a determined finish, with Caviar Noire refusing to yield as she edged ahead in the shadows of the post to score by a nose. It was her third win in 20 starts. 

The performance marked a turnaround for the mare, who Gillies admits has taken time to furnish.

“It’s taken her a long time to get her head in the game, but she’s starting to work it all out now.” he said.

As for what’s next, the stable is happy to let her enjoy the moment.

“We’ll probably just give her a month off now,” Gillies said. “She can have a little freshen up, she’s done a good job.”