SO YOU THINK SECURES IRISH CHAMPION STAKES

Click above to watch So You Think winning the Irish Champion Stakes (G1)
(Photo : The Guardian - Footage : RTE Two)

RED MILLS IRISH CHAMPION STAKES (G1)
Leopardsdown, Turf, 2200m
4 September 2011

The G1 Irish Champion Stakes, inaugurated in 1976 and run at Phoenix Park for a spell, really started to emerge as a leading staging post on the international calendar from the late 1990’s and has subsequently boasted some serious showdowns. Fantastic Light (USA) versus Galileo (Ire) and Dylan Thomas (Ire) against Ouija Board (GB) are just two of the recent clashes witnessed at Foxrock, and this year’s edition threatened to be substandard with just three rivals from outside Ballydoyle and only one of those with a success at the top level.

So You Think’s (NZ) (High Chaparral) position among the best that his stable had run in this contest was secured with a latest defeat of Workforce (GB) (King’s Best) when that rival was on one of his going days in the Eclipse. Whether his prior defeat by Rewilding (GB) (Tiger Hill) in the G1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot June 15 was a fair reflection of his merit is debatable, but it showed a vulnerability that was unexpected after all his Australian conquests and all the talk that accompanied his move to Europe.

Snow Fairy has been upstaged by the likes of Midday (GB) (Oasis Dream) on more than one occasion, so while she is not in the Ouija Board category yet, her presence in this line-up ensured there would be no saunter around for the favourite as there had been on his first two starts this term in The Curragh’s May 2 G3 Mooresbridge Stakes and May 22 G1 Tattersalls Gold Cup.

After a textbook first mile racing off an ideal tempo set by his Classic-winning stable companion Roderic O’Connor, So You Think was allowed no breathing space by the filly as soon as he was committed by Seamus Heffernan. For a few yards there were shades of Rewilding about her determined charge, but the long odds-on choice dug deep to maintain his advantage and deny the upset.

“He is getting more uncomplicated and idled a bit in front and gave a blow” Heffernan offered. “When you are on him, you are on the king of the road. Settling him was going to be a bit of a problem, but I was confident I could do that after the Eclipse. When he settles, he’d go over any trip.”

With the Irish Champion in the bag as expected, Coolmore’s John Magnier reflected on possible targets and gave a clear indication that a tilt at another Cox Plate was off the agenda. “You never say never, but it’s not imminent,” Magnier said of a possible return to So You Think’s old stomping ground. “He’s the kind of horse who spoils you for options, so what we’ll do I don’t know. He could run in the G1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes or G1 Champion Stakes at Ascot October 15, or the October 2nd Arc. It will be one of those I guess, but we are not going to rush into a decision. He’s a good horse, Snow Fairy is a good filly, and it was a good race. He’s no different to what he was in Australia - we just wanted people up here to see what he was like, and it makes him a real dual-hemisphere horse, so he’s a rare type. Royal Ascot wasn’t one of our best days, but other than that, this horse’s record is there for everyone to see.”

Extract from Thoroughbred Daily News

MICK KINANE ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT

Mick Kinane and Sea The Stars at Juddmonte International
(Photo : Getty Images)

WE WILL “SEA” YOU LATER

Thoroughbred Daily News reports:

Mick Kinane has called time on his career following a season to remember partnering Sea the Stars (Ire) (Cape Cross {Ire}). In a statement to the Press Association, the 50-year-old revealed the decision. “I have decided this is the right time to retire from race-riding. At 50 I still feel fit and sharp enough to do any horse justice but, after the season I have just had in partnership with Sea the Stars, I have the privilege of being able to end my career as a jockey on an incredible high and that’s what I want to do. I leave with a huge sense of gratitude to all the great horses I have ridden, all the great trainers whose genius developed those champions and everybody else in racing, from the stable lads to the owners, who have made me deeply thankful for my involvement in the game. Teamwork is the key to success in racing and I have been blessed with some of the best alliances a jockey could have. The most important support of all throughout my career has, naturally, come from my wife, Catherine, along with my family and friends. Both Catherine and our two precious daughters, Sinead and Aisling, know how much they mean to me.” Kinane retires as the winner of four renewals of the 2000 Guineas, three Derbys, two Oaks, a St Leger, five King Georges and six St James’s Palace Stakes. and a total of 14 Irish Classics and seven Irish Champion Stakes. He also garnered three editions of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, a Melbourne Cup, a Belmont Stakes and three Breeders’ Cup wins.

We were lucky enough to see Mick Kinane in action here in South Africa at Turffontein at the International Jockey’s challenge last month. He is a legendary rider & consummate professional & we wish him all the best in his retirement.

A VIDEO TRIBUTE TO SEA THE STARS

Click above to watch Sea The Stars…

(Footage : Pliokota)

SEA THE STARS : PERFECTION IN EQUINE FORM

If you are a fan of the brilliant Sea The Stars, this video tribute is a must watch. 

Our salutations to the now retired Sea The Stars.

FAME AND GLORY vs SEA THE STARS

Fame And Glory with Johnny Murtagh aboard
(Photo : Daily Mail)

DAVID vs GOLIATH

While Americans look forward to a clash between two generations of unbeaten fillies, Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra, Europeans look forward to their own battle royale, with Europe’s number one conditioner, Aidan O’Brien, relishing another crack at Sea The Stars with Fame And Glory.

His charge has twice finished runner-up to John Oxx’s super star, in the Investec Derby and the Irish Champion Stakes.

However the master of Ballydoyle feels he warrants a third tilt at his rival, in an evenly-run race over a mile-and-half for the Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

“We are looking forward to it. Our horse has had his prep and we were very impressed with him at Leopardstown. He sat in there and for a horse who’d won an Irish Derby, we were very impressed with how he quickened up,” O’Brien told At The Races.

“There’s no doubt he has to improve but it was his first run back. He quickened up past Mastercraftsman and we were delighted with him.”

“The good thing is himself and Sea The Stars didn’t lock horns early and it could have been a gruelling race for his first run back.”

“The way it happened was lovely, Mick (Kinane) was very cool on his horse and picked him up late when Mastercraftsman just took a blow.”

“Hopefully the two of them will get to the Arc and all the questions will be answered.”

AT TIMES LIKE THIS, CHAMPIONS HELP

Click above to watch the
Rachel Alexandra and Sea The Stars in action
in the Woodward Stakes and Irish Champion Stakes respectively
(Footage : YouTube) 

“THE RACHEL ALEXANDRA AND SEA THE STARS SHOWDOWN”

South Africans know the value of a champion.  We have our own POCKET POWER, who’s just taken his third consecutive Horse of the Year title, and has a magnetism irresistible to his fans.  While the rest of the world is desperately short of money right now, the one thing racing doesn’t lack, is a shortage of serious quality horses, and the emergence of an exceptional Champion on both sides of the Atlantic is probably the best antidote our sport could wish for. 

On Saturday, 8000kms apart, two three-year-olds of opposite sex, finally put up their hands and said, “I’m the one”.  In America, they’re witnessing the reign of a new queen, RACHEL ALEXANDRA, whose conquest of the older colts in Saratoga’s historic Woodward Stakes, was the best tonic that the beleaguered nation has known in a good while, Obama mania notwithstanding.

At the Curragh in Ireland, in that country’s Champion Stakes, a pair of three-year-old colts followed one another home in the same sequence as they’d done in England’s most famous three-year-old race, the Derby. In the process, the hero, SEA THE STARS, probably justified many peoples’ idea that he is the best horse in decades, even better, by some margin, than his illustrious half-brother and now famous stallion, GALILEO. 

Nobody really knows where they will go to by the end of the season, but there’s nobody in the game who wouldn’t want to see a resolution to the question as to whom is the better, and it seems the only way to settle that would be a meeting of the two of them on Breeder’s Cup Day in early November.  Whether that has any chance of materialising, is difficult to say, since the connections of RACHEL ALEXANDRA have long been antagonists of the new synthetic surfaces which most West Coast tracks have embraced.  While both sides pretend to be in it for the love of the game, one wonders whether such a prejudice could be set aside in anticipation of a spectacle which has the potential to bring about an early end to the recession in the horse business.

Rachel Alexandra
(Photo : Sarah K. Andrew)