Legendary Australian racehorse So You Think passes away aged 19

Two-time Cox Plate winner So You Think has died aged 19, just days before the iconic Moonee Valley race that made him famous.

The 10-time Group 1-winning stallion lost a short battle with illness while receiving care from Scone Equine Hospital.

Coolmore Australia announced the passing of their champion racehorse on Monday.

“When people visit Coolmore, more often than not the stallion most of them really want to see is So You Think,” Coolmore principal Tom Magnier said.

“He was an absolute gentleman, an incredibly kind and intelligent horse and this is a sad day for all the staff that have looked after him so well at Coolmore since he retired in 2012.

“We are so lucky to have had him and watch him develop into one of the country’s truly elite sires.

“He provided me with so many great memories on racetracks throughout the world as both a racehorse and a stallion.

“I will never forget the day he sired three Group 1 winners in a day at Randwick in 2022, but equally the day he provided Joseph O’Brien with his first Royal Ascot winner as a jockey in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes in 2012.”

So You Think won back-to-back Cox Plates in 2009 and 2010 under the eye of legendary trainer Bart Cummings.

Cummings once described him as “perfection on four legs, you don’t get any better than him. He is the finest, most genuine horse I have ever trained”.

After winning his first five Group 1 races at Coolmore with Cummings, So You Think went overseas and won another five with Aiden O’Brien in Ireland.

He was inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame in 2019.

Since being retired in 2012, the global champion has sired 12 individual Group 1 winners, including 2023 The Everest winner Think About It, and multiple Group 1 winner Think It Over.

He has finished in the top 10 on the sires table for each of the past five seasons, including two second-place finishes to I Am Invincible.