So You Think Partially Fails | Thebigtip

Royal Ascot day 2

'So You Think' ran second yesterday at Royal Ascot in the group one Prince of Wales Stakes. A run that puts his Prix De L’Arc De Triomphe run in some doubt given that he failed to dispatch his rivals today.

Sent out a prohibitive $1.35 favourite in a small field, So You Think had the run of the 2000 metre race, settling third, enabling one time English Derby favourite, but now pacemaker, Jan Vemeer, to set a high tempo.

Entering the long, 600 metre straight, the ex-Australian horse gathered up the leader in what looked like a stride and shot at least three lengths clear. It seemed at that stage we could all line up to collect our winnings.

But that spurt, the one which all of the world was comparing to Kingston Town, was all he had, and reminiscent of his last 100 metres in the 2010 Melbourne Cup he almost paddled to the line. Fair enough, eventual winner Rewilding only claimed him by a long neck and the third horse was five lengths further back, but what is worrying for his new Irish connections is that the Prix De L’Arc De Triomphe is over an extra 400 metres and against a big field of international superstars.

What we have learnt is that we should hold off the comparisons to Kingston Town for a while yet, for that great black horse not only had two or three runs in a race, he sustained it for the whole straight - his prime examples being his three year old season in Sydney and his first two Cox Plate wins where he clawed at the ground enraged to be behind the other runners.

If we can compare him to anything of the modern era, we could possibly say he and Octagonal would have a great match race. Both had an optimum distance of around 2000 metres, both won the Cox Plate at three years and both have been compared to Kingston Town.

Much of the hype in England has been centered on his Cox Plate victories, but plenty of other horses have won that event twice before, not all of them have been champions.  Sunline was a champion mare, much like Goldikova is in Europe today, and she was able to stretch it out to 2000 metres but was more of a miler. There is a case that she is still better than So You Think.

Northerly doubled up straight after Sunline, and many forget his big race record. He was a champion of the highest order; he too would be competitive with the new kid on the block, unfashionable, but oh so gutsy. Fields of Omagh won it twice, five years apart; he seemed to come right at that time of year, but his record states that he would be fairly uncompetitive overseas.

And before the start of the 21st century, a further seven horse have doubled up (or tripled) in Australia’s Weight for Age Championship. So winning this race does not make the horse a champion, it puts them in an unique bracket of high quality runners. What makes a champion is durability.

That is something So You Think had last spring, he may have lost it a little in Ireland, judging by his run yesterday. He should have blown them away, and he did not. Remembering he was sold primarily as a stud proposition, let us hope his connections are not winding him down just yet.

Where to from here for the superstar? Quite frankly he must improve five lengths to win the French race. A subtler target is probably the King George and Queen Elizabeth II Stakes in a month’s time. Over 2000 metres, he may just avoid the very best in the world and grab a group one in England. And hopefully his connections see the benefit of backing him up within a week or so, preferably in a big field. He has not taken on any more than six opponents yet, and with the strange English tradition of pace makers in small fields, it may just be that this style of racing is not his cup of tea.

Tomorrow Ascot continues with the Gold Cup being staged over 4000 metres. It is a partial guide to the Melbourne Cup because traditionally this race is considered the English version of our great race. There are a couple of runners entered for the first Tuesday in November, so it will interesting to see which are one-pace plodders and which have that explosiveness that is needed to win Down Under.