Dual Cox Plate winner So You Think has set up a possible clash with the world’s number one galloper Frankel after he claimed his tenth Group 1 win in the £400,000 150th Anniversary Of Prince Of Wales’s Stakes (1 mile 2 furlongs) at Royal Ascot yesterday.
Frankel (pictured) could clash with So You Think - photo © Sarah Ebbett
Ireland’s top trainer Aidan O’Brien has prepared So You Think for five of these Group 1 victories after taking over from Cups King Bart Cummings after the stallion finished third to Americain in the 2010 Melbourne Cup.
O’Brien had So You Think at his best to score a two and a quarter length win for his jockey son Joseph O’Brien over the Queen’s Carlton House trained by Sir Michael Stoute with Farhh a further half a length away in third spot.
So You Think is due to start stud duties this season and O’Brien suggested that the Group 1 £400,000 Coral – Eclipse (1 mile 2 furlongs 7 yards) at Sandown on July 7 could be his swansong, a race that Sir Henry Cecil has nominated Frankel for after the superstar scored an eleven length victory in the Group 1 £250,000 The Queen Anne Stakes (1 mile) on the first day of the Royal Ascot Carnival.
Frankel maintained his unbeaten record with his win in the Queen Anne and further enhanced his rating as the world’s highest ranked racehorse.
O’Brien will discuss So You Think’s program with Coolmore before confirming the six year old’s final racetrack appearance before heading back to Australia to stand the 2012 season for a fee of $66,000.
“The boys will talk about the Eclipse and they will make the decision,” O’Brien said.’
“We had in our head that Sandown would be the cut-off point but we will obviously be pleading now that we have him in a different place.”
“It will be a big business decision but we are just delighted that we have got him back to where Bart had him and what all of the people of Australia said he was.”
O’Brien admitted after the Prince Of Wales win that it had taken him too long to listen to what Cummings and a number of Australians were suggesting what he was doing wrong with So You Think after the top trainer had struggled to keep him performing at his highest level.
“We expected a big run today, we felt like we had him in a place that he was never in before with us, which is incredible,” O’Brien said.
“I think we’ve had him a year and a half and it’s taken me that long to learn how to train him. We went back and listened to what everybody was saying about him, listened to what Bart was saying and telling us what to do and what not to do. We listened at the end.”
“We felt he was in a place today he’s never been in before. I was delighted to hear what Bart had to say as he was speaking from the heart and I was probably over-working the horse and galloping the speed out of him instead of letting him be natural.”
“Everyone was of the opinion before we got him that he was all speed but I started off on the wrong leg with him and tried to make him stay a mile and a half and did too much with him.”
If O’Brien decides to try to win a second Eclipse at Sandown with So You Think it would be a fitting end to his illustrious career if he could match it with the world’s number one Frankel.
