So You Think so special at Royal Ascot
So You Think (6h High Chaparral-Triassic, by Tights) proved himself a true global champion at Royal Ascot on Wednesday when running away with the G1 Prince Of Wales’s Stakes to bag his 10th career Group 1 victory.
Trainer Aidan O’Brien blamed himself for not getting the best out of the High Chaparral entire sooner after the former Aussie superstar looked back to his very best when winning the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes by two and a quarter lengths from Carlton House.
So You Think is likely to appear next in the G1 Coral-Eclipse at Sandown in July and is then scheduled to retire to Coolmore Australia.
"We felt that we had this horse in a place that he had never been before with us," said O’Brien. "We have had him a year and a half and it has taken me a year and a half to learn how to train him. We’re just pleased to now have him in the place where everyone in Australia said he was. He’s one of those special horses and I’d like to say sorry to all the Australian people that I’ve made such a mess of it for so long. We were rightly getting a fair hammering from people in Australia but we needed to pull our socks up.
"I was probably working him too often, too long and too hard. I was killing him by making him grind but even so he was still very competitive.
"We went back, we listened to everybody, including all the interviews, and what Bart (Cummings) was saying in Australia about him - the things to do and the things not to do. We review everything, took all of the information and it probably took me a year and six months to start listening.
"The boys will talk about Sandown and they will make the decision. We had in our head that Sandown would be the cut-off point. All I can say is that I am sorry that I took so long to get him to show. It’s only because he is such a great horse otherwise I would have made a right muck of him. He is one of the special horses."
Part-owner John Magnier added: "He looks a picture and is a horse that travels all over the world. He won three Group Ones last year, two this season and 10 overall so I say to people what more could you want? It’s hard to work in two hemispheres, they are completely different environments and Aidan’s been happier with this horse this year than he has ever been."