In what has become the continuing tale of the spring, yet another big day belongs to Bart Cummings who has claimed his fourth Cox Plate.The legend of Australian racing pulled off a masterstroke with three-year-old So You Think who won the weight-for-age championship at just his fifth start."We did it again," Cummings said as he claimed his third Group One race on consecutive Saturdays, this time with the least experienced horse."You can't buy experience and I've got a bit of that."So You Think (
In what has become the continuing tale of the spring, yet another big day belongs to Bart Cummings who has claimed his fourth Cox Plate.
The legend of Australian racing pulled off a masterstroke with three-year-old So You Think who won the weight-for-age championship at just his fifth start.
"We did it again," Cummings said as he claimed his third Group One race on consecutive Saturdays, this time with the least experienced horse.
"You can't buy experience and I've got a bit of that."
So You Think ($14) did it the hard way, leading from start to finish with Glen Boss rating him perfectly with the other three-year-old in the race, Manhattan Rain stalking him all the way.
Boss' day was dampened in the stewards' room when he was fined $1,000 for his salute at the post and suspended for 10 meetings, until Melbourne Cup eve, for interference early in the race.
Just when it seemed their experienced rivals were poised to strike, the two youngsters kicked away with So You Think doing much the better, striding to a 2-1/2 length win.
Veteran Zipping did best of the rest finishing a long neck third with raging favourite Whobegotyou ($2.80) sixth.
He was later found to be sore across his back and hindquarters giving trainer Mark Kavanagh some solace for his worst ever run at Moonee Valley.
But the accolades were all with Cummings who believes anything is possible, and in his case probable.
"He may be only a three-year-old but he's a big, strong horse with above normal ability so I thought he should run," Cummings said.
So You Think scraped into the field as the 14th horse and the only one not a Group One winner.
Part of Cummings' strategy to put him in the Cox Plate had to do with his belief that the 2500 metres of the Victoria Derby was too taxing on early three-year-olds.
What wasn't part of Cummings' strategy was that So You Think would lead the country's best weight-for-age performers around the tough, turning 2040 metres at Moonee Valley, a course he wobbled around at trackwork on Tuesday.
"I told Glen Boss to try to have him forward but didn't expect him to be up there," Cummings said.
"But in the end he did it pretty easily."
Boss, who won the race in 2005 on Makybe Diva, said he had no intention of leading and no expectation of winning.
"I went in with a very open mind," he said.
"He is a bit raw and immature and I thought if I could ride him a good race he could run third.
"But after 20 metres the decision was made. He relaxed and no-one bothered him.
"It just can't happen in a Cox Plate. It's a race where you have to always expect the unexpected.
"To win this with Bart is amazing."
Amazing is a word that is commonplace when it comes to describing Cummings who now has 256 Group One wins and the prospect of more to come over the next couple of weeks.
He won his first Cox Plate in 1973 with Taj Rossi, a three-year-old who took on older horses and beat them week after week that spring and also claimed the Derby on the way.
So You Think won't be set too big a task but he is scheduled to run in the Emirates Stakes (1600m) in two weeks.
Nick Williams represented his father Lloyd, the owner of Zipping, and said he was amazed by the performance.
"This is a brave comment, he's better than Octagonal this horse we saw today," Williams said.
Octagonal won the 1995 Cox Plate as a three-year-old and went on the following autumn to win four Group One races.
Manhattan Rain's trainer Gai Waterhouse said the race was won at the start.
"They all took off together the older horses, and these two three-year-olds had too much speed for them," she said.
"The race was won when the horses jumped and Glen went immediately to the lead."
Jockey Craig Williams said he momentarily thought he had a chance but "So You Think was going too fast".
Just behind Zipping in fourth was sentimental favourite El Segundo, winner of the race two years ago, while second favourite Heart Of Dreams ($7.50) weakened in the run home to finish seventh.