FRANKEL

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Writing this in great haste as I have just got off the race train and I have a dinner.

At 1.55pm, Frankel walked into the pre-parade ring. I had a good spot, right on the rail. That was worth it, right there. The five hundred miles were worth it. He lifted his noble head, and he had, as my mother always says about the great ones, the look of eagles.

He was tight, fit, compact; nothing on him wasted. It was all class and muscle and power.

He is a more delicate horse in life than he is on the television, and he has much more character. He is a light, gracious, champion, rather than the great, tearing, bulldozer that he looks on the screen.

The observers took in a collective breath. 'Oh,' they said. 'There he is.' He nodded his brilliant head at them, as if to say, yes, here I am.

I lost The Older Brother and his Beloved and ended up watching with a tremendous bunch of Aussies who had come all the way from Melbourne to see Black Caviar. 'Lovely country you've got here,' they said, with gusto.

'Yes,' I said. 'Sorry about the weather.'

And then they were off, and my race glasses shook, and the whole place fell silent.

About three out, there was the beginning of something. It was a murmur, a shift, a shiver. Then it was a low shout, a rumble. And then, then, as the most brilliant of horses shook himself up and let out his full, absurd, beautiful, impossible, unanswerable power, it rose to an almighty roar, a most unBritish rebel yell, as ladies in silk frocks and gentlemen in black toppers forgot their manners and whooped and hollered and paid shouting homage to something that they all knew they would never see again.

He won by eleven lengths, on the bridle.

I burst into tears of joy, in front of all the strange Australians.

There is so much more to write, but I must eat something or I shall fall over.

But really, all I have to say is that it was the best thing I ever saw.

I've been lucky enough to see a few things in my life. But for beauty, grace, glory, and sheer, raging talent, this was the best. It was the most perfect, the most beautiful, the most complete. It was beyond everything I hoped for. It was the champion of champions, the king of kings, in his pomp, laughing at the rest.

Now, for the rest of my life, I shall be able to say: I was there when Frankel destroyed them in the Queen Anne. I shall be able to say, when I am ancient and crabbed and cranky and bent: I was there.