So Si Bon Wins G3 Aurie’s Star

Tara Madgwick - Saturday August 10
Enigmatic galloper So Si Bon had never won first up in five previous preparations, but the talented son of So You Think changed all that at Flemington on Saturday when powering clear to win the Group III VRC Aurie's Star Handicap over 1200 metres.




Fresh and ready to fire the Hayes Dabernig trained six year-old travelled well back in the field for Luke Nolen and surged to the line to win by a length taking his overall record to three wins and 11 placigns from 38 starts with prizemoney in excess of $700,000.

So Si Bon - images Grant CourtneyA lack of commitment to being a racehorse and a series of biting incidents that saw him barred on more than one occasion earned So Si Bon a bad boy reputation, but since being gelded and joining the Lindsay Park operation he's finally started to deliver on the promise he's always shown.

"He had a couple of goes at biting but he was probably just jack of everything," said Luke Nolen.

"Horses do these sorts of things for a reason and he probably wasn't happy with whatever was happening at the time.

"He is starting to put together a profile fitting of a horse that he probably once promised to be.

"Horses don't lose ability but you have got to find a way to get it out of them in different ways.

"I know he had a bit of a tag on him as a non-winner, but he goes OK for me."

A $250,000 Inglis Easter purchase for his original trainer Robbie Laing from the Newgate Farm draft, So Si Bon was bred by Morning Rise Stud and is one of two winners from former smart stakes winning juvenile Black Minx, who died in 2014.

So Si Bon is the first stakes-winner of the new season for So You Think, who is coming off a super successful past season having sired 114 winners of $8.4 million in 2018/2019 with a new Group I winner in Nakeeta Jane his highlight horse.

A champion son of High Chaparral (IRE), So You Think stands at Coolmore at a fee of $38,500.

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