So You Think, a winner of 10 group I races and $8.6 million in purses, has been officially retired after pulling a muscle in his hindquarters, it was announced July 5.
The son of High Chaparral was to have run his farewell race in the July 7 Eclipse Stakes (Eng-I) at Sandown Park, after which he was scheduled to retire. Instead he will enter quarantine July 7 and will stand at Coolmore Australia for a fee of Aust$66,000.
"So You Think is an extraordinary horse and it was a real privilege to have had him here at Ballydoyle on loan from Australia," said trainer Aidan O'Brien, who took over the 6-year-old runner from Bart Cummings to win the last five of his group I victories.
A champion 3-year-old and miler in Australia–and Ireland's highweighted older horse last year–So You Think took the 2009 and 2010 editions of the Tatts Cox Plate (Aust-I), Australia's premiere weight for age event. In 2010 he also won the New Zealand Bloodstock Memsie Stakes (Aust-II), the Rokk Ebony Underwood Stakes (Aust-I), the Caulfield Yalumba Stakes (Aust-I), and the Logines MacKinnon Stakes (Aust-I). Purchased by Coolmore and sent to Ballydoyle, he began a Northern Hemisphere campaign that resulted in victories in the 2011 editions of the High Chaparral E.B.F. Moorsebridge Stakes (Ire-III), the Tattersalls Gold Cup (Ire-II), the Coral Eclipse Stakes (Eng-I), and the Red Mills Irish Champion Stakes (Ire-I). In 2012 he won the Tattersalls Gold Cup (Ire-I) and the Prince of Wales's Stakes (Eng-I), that most recent victory coming June 20 at Royal Ascot.
"It's a big disappointment that he'll miss the Eclipse, but he's had a wonderful racing career and now it's time for him to shine at stud," said Tom Magnier of Coolmore Australia. "His book reads like a who's who of all the best mares and breeders so he'll get the best possible start."
Bred in New Zealand by M J Moran & Piper Farm out of the Tights mare Triassic, So You Think was a $85,481 yearling purchase in 2008 who first raced for Dato Tan Chin Nam and Tunku Ahmad Yahaya.
