‘He’s going to be in for another big season’ – Revelare emerges as the next star for ‘underrated’ So You Think
Exciting stayer Revelare (So You Think) earned his ticket to the Melbourne Cup (Gr 1, 3200m) with another win on Saturday that brought many answers but also one question:
Is So You Think (High Chaparral) the most underrated stallion in Australia?
Many learned judges think so, and the stallion’s numbers continue to back the assertion up.
Now 19, but showing no signs of slowing down in the breeding shed – where his fertility is reliably in the mid to high 70 per cent range – So You Think is off to another strong start this season.
Revelare’s Cup-qualifying victory in Saturday’s Archer Stakes (Gr 3, 2500m) at Flemington – his eighth win in 11 starts – has helped his Coolmore sire to an early third place on the general sires’ table, behind the late Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice) and reigning champion Zoustar.
So You Think is equal-second by winners with 31, one behind Russian Revolution (Snitzel), and second by wins with 34, three behind the same Newgate Farm stallion.
The city winners continue to flow for the dual Cox Plate (Gr 1, 2040m)-winning So You Think. Revelare’s Archer success, which opened his sire’s stakes-winners account for 2025-26, followed a pair of metro victories a week earlier, with So Magnificent scoring over 1200 metres at Randwick, and Rise To It over 2040 metres at Moonee Valley.
Three days before that at Warwick Farm came a third win from seven starts for Tuileries, for trainer Peter Snowden and Jonathan Munz’s Pinecliff Racing, a four-year-old mare tipped for stakes grade in the near future.
So You Think has sired 12 Group 1 winners. Aside from a range of middle distance winners and Sydney Cup (Gr 1, 3200m) victor Knight’s Order, they include Everest (Gr 1, 1200m) hero Think About It, Surround Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) winner Nakeeta Jane, plus Inference, La Bella Diosa, Nimalee and Palaisipan, who earned elite laurels over 1600 metres.
In Australia, So You Think has 53 stakes winners at a healthy 5.91 per cent of runners, while his global rate of 5.7 per cent also holds up.
In New Zealand – where he had another metro winner on Saturday with Cognito at Riccarton – he has ten stakes winners from just 55 runners, at 18.2 per cent.
So You Think finished second to I Am Invincible on the Australian general sires’ table in 2022 and 2023, third the year after and eighth last year, when he finished sixth by winners.
Yet he’s currently covering his 14th book of mares at Coolmore for a relatively modest $44,000 (all fees inc GST), down from $77,000 last year.
The price no doubt reflects the fact that since early running two-year-olds are not his stock in trade, So You Think remains outside the list of the most in-demand sires at yearling sales, where his average price has dropped from $183,000 to $152,000 in the past three years.
Still, considering his consistency for stakes winners and runs on the board, and his high fertility, it’s little wonder Coolmore believes he deserves regard as one of the best value stallions in the country – at the very least.
“He’s an amazing stallion,” said Coolmore’s nominations and sales manager Colm Santry. “He’s very well liked by a lot of professional people in the industry, but at the same time, he’s very underrated.
“Whenever you see these media segments of rapid fire questions for figures in the industry and they ask, ‘Who’s the most underrated stallion in the country?’, two out of three people will say it’s So You Think.
“He’s going very well again at the moment. He does it every single weekend, with city winners, and of course he gets a lot of stakes winners. He’s going to be in for another big season.”
So You Think did achieve his personal best yearling price this year with his third career seven-figure lot, when Glentree Thoroughbreds and Badgers Bloodstock paid $1.15 million for the first foal of 2020 VRC Oaks (Gr 1, 2500m) winner Personal (Fastnet Rock) at the Inglis Easter sale.
But overall, his relatively modest statistics for two-year-olds and sprinters perhaps contribute to his “underrated” tag – perplexing for some considering so many of Australia’s richest races fall in the 1600-metre-2400-metre range for older horses.
Think It Over won six times over 2000 metres – including the $4 million Queen Elizabeth Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m) amid 14 wins which helped him net $8.5 million. Knight’s Order – an import borne of So You Think’s four shuttle seasons in Ireland – won five times in Australia from 1600 metres to 3200 metres en route to earning $2.8 million.
“So many people don’t want to buy a yearling and wait until they’re three or four to get going,” Santry said. “The whole philosophy in Australia is generally built around early running, and speed.
“But at the same time, let’s remember So You Think has had an Everest winner, so he does have versatility in his armoury. He’s not just a middle distance sire.”
Santry noted buyers of So You Think colts should be encouraged by the performance of his sireline in producing stallions.
He’s one of three sons of High Chaparral (by the ever-giving Sadler’s Wells) in the Australian general sires’ top ten at present, along with Toronado in eighth and Dundeel in ninth.
Dundeel in turn has two burgeoning young sire sons already with multiple Group 1 winners in Super Seth and Castelvecchio, while So You Think has three sons who’ve produced a stakes winner each in D’Argento, Peltzer and Tamasa.
“The High Chaparral – So You Think sireline has got longevity in it for sure,” Santry said.
“Toronado, Super Seth, Dundeel, Castelvecchio – they were all outstanding racehorses from a very good sireline, and now they’ve turned out to be very significant sires themselves.”
So You Think is also making progress through his daughters.
He’s a Slipper-winning broodmare sire, thanks to Fireburn (Rebel Dane) in 2022.
And he improved to finish 32nd on the Australian broodmare sires’ chart last season, with Inglis Millennium (RL, 1100m) hero Rivellino among his best grandchildren.
Some of his leading daughters have brought top dollar on the broodmare market, with Nimalee fetching $3.6 million at the Inglis Chairman’s sale, and Palaisipan sold privately to Japanese big spenders Northern Farm.
“A good question to ask when a stallion goes to stud is, ‘Will this horse make a good broodmare sire?’” Santry said.
“If the answer is no, that stallion won’t be good enough to make it as a stallion. If you say yes, they’re probably going to make it as a stallion on the way through.
“Those brilliant Guineas winners – like Flying Spur, Redoute’s Choice, Lonhro – the ones that are the best of the best, become the broodmare sires. Or a sprinter like Fastnet Rock – brilliant, outstanding, Champion three-year-olds with good pedigrees who are high class racehorses.
“So You Think was such a high class racehorse, a Cox Plate winner at three and four, a winner of ten Group 1s, five in each hemisphere. You know he’s going to make it as a broodmare sire.
“So people buying So You Thinks can look forward to the future beyond racing.”
Revelare could be putting So You Think’s name in lights deep into the spring. He’s now a $13 chance for the Melbourne Cup and $18 for the Caulfield Cup (Gr 1, 2400m).
But beyond that, Santry is buoyed by the fact the stallion has “plenty more runners in the barrel” to do their sire’s talking in the next few seasons. So You Think covered 204 mares in 2021 for 149 live foals – the crop that are now three-year-olds, many of them still unraced. He followed that with 211, 164 and 105 mares in the past three springs.
“He’s got huge numbers of yearlings, two- and three-year-olds in the wings, so he’s got a lot of runners to come in the next couple of years,” Santry said. “He’ll continue to be a successful sire for a long time to come.”
With So You Think having come back to what Santry calls a “very attractive” fee for this season, he’ll likely cover a hefty book of well over 100 mares.
“He’s popular, but he also picks up a lot of mares during a breeding season, due to his extreme fertility,” Santry said.
“He gets through a season very easily because he only has to cover his mares once. He gets everything in foal, so he picks up a lot of mares after they miss to other stallions.
“You’d have to say, at $40,000, he’s one of the best value sires in the country.”