With five Group One wins in each hemisphere, So You Think set fresh parameters for a New Zealand-bred thoroughbred
It was to some degree appropriate that in the anniversary week of a Cox Plate double that defined him as a rare talent, New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame member So You Think should succumb to liver disease at Coolmore’s Australian headquarters in the Hunter Valley.
Even so, 19 years is by no means ancient in thoroughbred stallion terms, particularly when he was riding the crest of a wave in the breeding barn. Having sired more than 750 winners – 12 of them at Group One and 66 black-type – So You Think was as popular as ever midway through his 14th stud season.
The handsome brown’s life had begun in New Zealand at Windsor Park Stud in 2006 as a member of the first locally conceived crop by high-profile shuttler High Chaparral, a dual Derby winner amongst seven Group Ones in England, Ireland the United States. The partnership that bred So You Think was headed by Windsor Park’s marketing manager Mike Moran, having bought the dual stakes-winning Tights mare Triassic cheaply as an older mare.
She was 16 when she foaled So You Think in mid-November, and 14 months later the leggy colt was in the Windsor Park draft for the 2008 National Yearling Saleat Karaka. As a fellow South Australian and former employee of legendary trainer Bart Cummings, Moran made his old boss well aware of the yearling he part-owned with Cecile Smith of Piper Farm.
The upshot was that Cummings and his long-time off-sider Duncan Ramage claimed the High Chaparral colt for $110,000, just $10,000 above his reserve price. He was bought on behalf of a partnership headed by Malaysian billionaire Dato Tan Chin Nam, for whom Ramage was bloodstock manager and whose black and white checks with yellow sleeves had been carried by star Cummings-trained stayers Saintly and Think Big.
As an autumn two-year-old So You Think won on debut in a midweek 1400m race at Rosehill and after being put aside until the spring, his career quickly got serious. He finished second fresh-up in Listed three-year-old company and followed that with his first stakes win in the Gr. 3 Gloaming Stakes. At just his fifth start So You Think joined the elite list of three-year-old winners of the W S Cox Plate, leading from the start under lightweight Glen Boss to score untested by more than three lengths. He had just one start that preparation for second in the Emirates Stakes at Flemington and wasn’t sighted again until the following spring.
His four-year-old campaign began with successive wins in the Memsie, Underwood and Yalumba Stakes, then a repeat Cox Plate victory followed a week later by a fifth-straight success in the LKS Mackinnon Stakes tempted Cummings to test his stamina in the Melbourne Cup. The 3200m proved beyond reach after hitting the front with 250m to run but being clearly outstayed by the French-trained Dunaden and the lightly-weighted Zabeel gelding Maluckyday.
That was So You Think’s final start for Cummings, who had described him as “perfection on four legs” and labelled him as the best he had trained, after breeding giant Coolmore claimed a controlling share at a reported A$25 million and the five-time Group One winner was transferred to Aidan O’Brien’s Ballydoyle Stables in Ireland.
Six months later So You Think made a winning Northern Hemisphere debut in the Gr. 3 Mooresbridge Stakes over 10 furlongs (2000m) at the Curragh and followed that with the first of another five Group Ones in the Tattersalls Gold Cup over the same track and distance. That set up the ultimate challenge of the Royal Ascot Prince of Wales’s Stakes, but as the odds-on favourite he had to bow to Godolphin’s Rewilding.
On a relatively quick back-up, So You Think was then aimed at another 10-furlong feature, the Coral Eclipse Stakes, at Sandown Park, and with a tough victory over the previous year’s Derby and Arc de Triomphe winner Workforce, he restored full respect. He added to his profile by winning the Irish Champion Stakes, confirming a start in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in the first weekend of October.
So You Think was unable to go one better than fellow Hall of Famer Balmerino, runner-up in the 1977 Arc de Triomphe, finishing a brave fourth to German filly Danedream after settling well back in the capacity field and making ground all the way to the line. His busy year racing against the world’s best middle-distance gallopers was still not over. Thirteen days later he finished second in the Ascot Champion Stakes and then crossed the Atlantic for a taste of American dirt racing, finishing sixth in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs on November 5.
After a short winter break, So You Think was off for another novel experience, the Dubai World Cup on Meydan’s artificial surface, in which he finished fourth. A repeat Tattersalls Gold Cup win followed in May and the curtain came down on his fantastic career as he went one better than the previous year with victory in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot.
As the winner of five Group One races in each hemisphere during a career that compiled a record of 14 wins from 23 starts and stakes of A$8.89 million, So You Think was inducted to the New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame in 2016, followed three years later by induction to the Australian Racing Hall of Fame.
His globe-trotting deeds will be long remembered, and after being retired to Coolmore Stud shuttle duties in 2012, his race record will be complemented by the on-going achievements of his progeny. At the time of his death, So You Think was credited by Arion Pedigrees with 766 winners of 2,303 races across an incredible 30 racing jurisdictions. His progeny list is headed by 12 Group One winners amongst a total of 43 at Group level.
— Dennis Ryan
