Thinking he was just fit enough

Aidan O’Brien’s dice with So You Think’s fitness almost cost the big horse a win in the Group 1 Irish Champion Stakes (2000m) at Leopardstown over the weekend.

This is the second time the Irish trainer has sent So You Think to the post underdone – the other time he wasn’t so lucky when Rewilding ran down the former Australian star in the shadows of the post in the Group 1 Prince Of Wales’s Stakes (2000m) at Royal Ascot in June.

On that occasion, O’Brien admitted he’d been too easy on So You Think after two soft wins in Ireland in the entire’s first two starts for his new trainer after So You Think was shipped from Bart Cummings’s stables at Flemington late in 2010 following a majority sale to the Coolmore conglomerate.

On the weekend, So You Think was presented at Leopardstown – his first start since winning the Group 1 Coral-Eclipse (2000m) at Sandown on July 2 – looking as though he’d just come from one of Coolmore Stud’s stallion parades.

It took all of So You Think’s reserves to hold off a game Snow Fairy in the Irish Champion Stakes. There wasn’t a drop left in the tank, and O’Brien heaved a sigh of relief. Snow Fairy is no slouch – she’s won four times at the highest level – but she shouldn’t have been able to get near a fully wound-up So You Think the way the race was run, with the 1-4 favourite following a lead horse, Roderic O’Connor, from the O’Brien stable.

“We think he can take more racing and he’s ready for a busy campaign,” O’Brien said.

Part-owner John Magnier confirmed that there were pre-race worries from the Ballydoyle camp before the race. “It’s a long time since he ran. We gave him a good break since the last day and we were a bit worried about that,” he said.

You can bet the froth off your Guinness that So You Think is in desperate need of some competition. This is a horse that last spring won the Caulfield Stakes, Cox Plate and Mackinnon Stakes before his gallant third in the Melbourne Cup, all in the space of 25 days.

So You Think has always been a “looker”, a big, imposing horse with a handsome head, but under O’Brien’s training regime at Ballydoyle, the horse has grown into a monster, a giant show pony with an arched neck as thick as Magnier’s wallet.

I look forward to seeing a fitter and trimmer So You Think run in the Group 1 Champion Stakes (2000m) at Newmarket early next month before he goes to France for a crack at the Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (2400m) at Longchamp three weeks later.

Once again the charade about whether the horse would come to Australia for a third Cox Plate reared its unwanted head when O’Brien said “nothing is ruled out”. It’s time for everyone to stop asking the question … HE’S NOT COMING!