Coral Eclipse Stakes 2011 – So You Think and Seamie Heffernan win at Sandown
The eagerly anticipated mid-season race comes to a close with the likely winner, So You Think, landing the 1 mile 2 Furlong Coral Eclipse Stakes on 2 July and purse of £500,000.
With £283,850 going to the winner, Aidan O’Brien’s trained So You Think, banished the disappointing memory of the Group 1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes at the Royal Ascot.
Jockey Ryan Moore switched roles to ride a familiar colt, Workforce, Moore had So You Think under him in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes but trainer, Aidan O’Brien, brought Seamie Heffernan to ride So You Think in the Coral Eclipse Stakes.
Workforce has had Ryan Moore as a jockey throughout his three-year old career and together the pair enjoyed four wins out of seven starts. Both recently came out of a win at Sandown in the Group 3 Brigadier Gerard Stakes on 26 May 2011.
On the other hand, So You Think had Seamie Heffernan, who grabbed two wins out of two runs, on the five-year old bay colt and looked unbeatable both at the Sandown and at Curragh when they went on to win the Group 3 Mooresbridge Stakes on 2 May 2011.
So You Think also provided trainer, Aidan O’Brien, with his fifth win in the Coral Eclipse Stakes, as he himself became the 15th horse trained by an Irish man to win the prestigious stakes race at Sandown.
It is always a cat and mouse game with So You Think and Seamie Heffernan surprisingly seems to know more about it than Ryan Moore. Heffernan didn’t kick until Workforce showed his full intentions to go for the winner.
Ryan Moore gave it away early yet again when he tried to go for the wire two furlongs from home.
However, Seamie Heffernan was waiting for the cue and when he got the clear signal he motored So You Think at the right time, reeling Workforce in with a furlong to go, matching strides with him, edging past him at the right time to win by half a length
over Workforce.
Ryan Moore did the same with So You Think at the Royal Ascot, and paid heavily as Rewilding caught the colt at the closing stages to win the race.
This time around it was a straight forward race with Confront, the pace maker, on the outside and he wasn’t going to stay there forever as he paved way for So You Think.
Snow Fairy had a disappointing run, and managed to beat the pace maker Confront to finish fourth on the five horse field. Sri Putra sent in at the odds of 33-to-1, ran a huge race and surged past Snow Fairy and Confront to finish third.
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