Think About It a formula for success
How did a $70,000 yearling develop into a Group 1 winner after just nine starts? The numbers were always in Think About It’s favour.
When a horse as progressive as Think About It (So You Think) emerges, there is always a desire to dive into its background to get an understanding of how a relatively cheap yearling purchase ended up as a Group 1 winner.
In the case of the Joe Pride-trained four-year-old, who now has eight wins in nine starts following his victory in Saturday’s Kingsford Smith Stakes (Gr 1, 1300m), the numbers suggest he had the right pedigree and the right people behind him to succeed.
His sire So You Think (High Chaparral) now has ten Group 1 winners, and significantly half of them, like Think About It, are out of granddaughters of Danehill (Danzig).
His dam Tiare is by Flying Spur, who is also the broodmare sire of So You Think’s Surround Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) winning daughter, Nakeeta Jane. The So You Think-Flying Spur nick has produced 17 winners in total from 24 runners, a list that also includes Saturday’s Randwick winner Cisco Bay.
It is one of three combinations with the Coolmore-based stallion and ten-time Group 1 winner which have produced multiple top-flight winners, the other two being Redoute’s Choice, who like Flying Spur is a son of Danehill, and Zabeel (Sir Tristram).
Zabeel’s presence is significant in this case as he features in the third generation of Think About It’s pedigree as the sire of Tiare’s dam, Moorea.
The cross of the blood of generational stallions Danehill and Zabeel has proven a great source of elite broodmares and the 3 x 3 cross of these sires on the damside of the pedigree has produced 23 stakes winners (from 669 runners), among them five individual Group 1 winners, a list that now includes Think About It.
Group 1-winning broodmare sire combinations with So You Think
| Broodmare sire | Runners | Winners | SW | G1w | Group 1 winners |
| Redoute’s Choice | 51 | 40 | 3 | 2 | D’Argento, Inference |
| Zabeel | 33 | 24 | 3 | 2 | Think It Over, Nimalee |
| Flying Spur | 24 | 17 | 2 | 2 | Think About It, Nakeeta Jane |
| Al Maher | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Quick Thinker |
| Woodman | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Knights Order |
| Weasel Clause | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Sopressa |
| Star Way | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | La Diosa |
It is five years ago this month since Flying Spur left us, but the legacy of the Arrowfield Stud champion remains remarkably strong as a broodmare sire. He now has 16 Group 1 winners in that damsire role, two of them this season, after Paulele’s (Dawn Approach) success in the Winterbottom Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m).
Flying Spur’s daughters’ progeny have earned $19.1 million in Australia so far in 2022/23, their highest ever in a single campaign, and enough to place him sixth on the broodmare sire rankings. While Flying Spur has never been crowned Champion broodmare sire, his tremendous consistency in that role is underlined by the fact he has finished top six in the past 13 completed Australian seasons.
Despite this, the progeny of his daughters remain very affordable through the ring. This year, the average price of a yearling out of a Flying Spur mare has been $122,512, the highest it has ever been, but at a discount to all five of the broodmare sires currently ranked above him this season.
When Pride and Proven Thoroughbreds’ Jamie Walter picked Think About It out of the Newgate draft at the 2020 Inglis Melbourne Premier Sale, the average price of a yearling out of a Flying Spur mare that year was $104,981, while the seasonal average of a yearling by So You Think was $171,267.
So that $70,000 purchase price was, in that context, always a bargain. He was the second cheapest of the 14 So You Thinks offered at that sale and has been by far the best performed.
Of course, Walter knew what he was looking for when it came to So You Think’s progeny. He was the tenth yearling by him that Proven Thoroughbreds had purchased to that point and of those ten horses, eight have been winners.
Think About It also had the numbers on his side from a trainer perspective. The Kingsford Smith success was Pride’s 31st racetrack victory with the progeny of So You Think, a number that puts him behind only Chris Waller (62) and Ciaron Maher and David Eustace (33) when it comes to stable success with the star stallion.
Given that, it is no surprise that Pride secured two colts by So You Think under his own name, and one filly in partnership with Proven Thoroughbreds, at this year’s Inglis Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale, including a colt from Grenville Stud for $280,000 out of a daughter of another son of Danehill in Commands.
Tasmania’s Grenville’s Stud, incidentally, is where Think About It’s dam Tiare now resides, having been purchased for $150,000 at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale two years ago.
Leading 2022/23 Australian broodmare sires and respective yearling averages
| Broodmare sire | SW | Prize-money | Ave yearling price (2023) |
| Redoute’s Choice | 10 | $28,482,323 | $135,497 |
| Encosta de Lago | 18 | $28,379,261 | $130,021 |
| Exceed and Excel | 14 | $22,871,067 | $130,862 |
| Fastnet Rock | 13 | $19,706,322 | $200,344 |
| Lonhro | 13 | $19,274,271 | $137,217 |
| Flying Spur | 6 | $19,161,685 | $122,512 |
Saturday’s Group 1 racing at Eagle Farm was also a reminder of the excellent recent record of Cox Plate-winning stallions.
While 2009 and 2010 winner So You Think marked a tenth individual Group 1 winner, Waikato Stud’s Ocean Park (Thorn Park), who won the Cox Plate (Gr 1, 2040m) in 2012, celebrated his fourth with the impressive Queensland Derby (Gr 1, 2400m) success of Kovalica.
Since the start of April, there have been 18 Group 1 races staged in Australia and five of them have had winners sired by horses who won the Cox Plate.
There are only five active stallions who fit this profile, yet across the course of this Australian season, they have sired the winners of 36 stakes races, led by So You Think, who has 14.
That run of results is particularly timely considering the most recent winners of the Moonee Valley feature, Anamoe (Street Boss) and State Of Rest (Starspangledbanner), begin their Australian breeding careers at Darley and Newgate respectively this spring.
In Kovalica, Ocean Park looks to have a horse to fill the substantial breach left by the retirement of four-time Group 1 winner Tofane at the start of this season.
Like Tofane, who won both a Stradbroke Handicap (Gr 1, 1400m) and a Tattersall’s Tiara (Gr 1, 1400m), he has shown a liking for Eagle Farm, winning a trio of stakes races there over the past six months.
Overall, the progeny of Ocean Park have a 17 per cent strike–rate at Eagle Farm, with 14 wins, six of them at Group level, for a combined prize–money of over $3 million.
The dam side of Kovalica’s pedigree also has a strong affinity for the Queensland carnival. His dam Vitesse (Makfi) is a half-sister to The Bostonian (Jimmy Choux), who won both the Doomben 10,000 (Gr 1, 1200m) and the Kingsford Smith Cup in 2019.
Kovalica is one of just two southern hemisphere-bred stakes winners for Makfi (Dubawi) as a broodmare sire and the only progeny of Ocean Park out of a Makfi mare to get to the track.
Cox Plate-winning sires in Australia – 2022/23
| Sire | Stakes winners | Stakes wins | G1 winners |
| So You Think | 10 | 14 | 1 |
| Savabeel | 8 | 11 | 3 |
| Shamus Award | 3 | 5 | 0 |
| Ocean Park | 2 | 4 | 1 |
| Adelaide | 2 | 2 | 0 |