The gelding defied 20-to-one odds to win the early season sprint feature on August 10 last year, his first start since finishing at the tail of the field in the G1 Doncaster Mile in April.
By season’s end, So Si Bon had added another two wins and amassed $681,360 in stakes, lifting his career totals to five wins from 51 starts and more than $1.3 million.
He finished second in the G1 Memsie S., fifth in the G1 Rupert Clarke S., fourth in the G1 Cantala S., fourth in the G2 Blamey S., sixth in the All-Star Mile, fourth in the Listed Golden Mile and G3 Easter Cup, and first in the VOBIS Gold Mile.
“His win in this race last year was the start of a terrific season,” said Tom Dabernig, who trains So Si Bon in partnership with Ben Hayes.
“He’s one of those horses who can race over a wide range of distances, and he’s a lovely, sound old horse – as you can see by his number of starts.
“He was probably left as a colt for a little bit too long, and he just lost his way a little bit for a while. But after being gelded he really turned things around, and last season he produced some excellent performances.”
A genuine chance
So Si Bon is rated an $8.50 chance for this year’s Aurie’s Star, with $4.20 favouritism shared between Godolphin’s Home Of The Brave (Ire) (Starspangledbanner) and the Lindsey Smith-trained Great Again (Viscount).
“We’re very happy with how So Si Bon is coming up in this preparation, and we expect him to run another good race on Saturday,” Dabernig said. “He sprints well fresh and likes the straight course at Flemington.
“If he can relax early and there's good pressure on, he'll finish strongly and should be a genuine top-three chance.
So Si Bon after winning last year's G3 Aurie's Star H.
“He'll like the conditions with a bit of rain about. There should be good pace, which he'll like, and if he's left alone early he should run a good race. The main difference between last year and this year is that he's got the topweight of 60kgs and he only carried 55.5kgs last year.”
So Si Bon is likely to follow a similar spring path to 2019, with the G1 Memsie S. on August 29 looming as the obvious next step. But Dabernig and Hayes have also nominated him for the Cox Plate on October 24.
“We’ll naturally look at 1400 metres and a mile after this, and there’s the possibility of stepping him up over 2000 metres later on as well,” Dabernig said. “We’ll see how he performs through the spring.”
