So You Think has been rated higher than 1970s champion colt Taj Rossi by RVL handicapper Greg Carpenter.

Bart Cummings has already declared Taj Rossi the best three-year-old he’s ever trained but the master may have to reconsider if his latest star wins the GI Emirates Stakes at Flemington on Saturday.

Carpenter has allocated So You Think 52.5kg for the $1 million mile which is half a kilo over weight-for-age.  “If you go back through three-year-olds that have run in this race, Weekend Hussler had 51.5kg and Taj Rossi, who won the race after coming off a Cox Plate victory, had 51kg which at the time was weight-for-age,” Carpenter said in the lead-up to the last day of the carnival.

“So in those terms, with So You Think given 0.5kg over weight-for-age, he rates more highly than Taj Rossi and Weekend Hussler.”

Taj Rossi (Matrice – Dark Queen by Coronation Boy) was unbeatable at the 1973 Melbourne spring carnival winning the Ascot Vale Stakes, Cox Plate, Victoria Derby and Emirates Stakes which was known as the George Adams Hcp in those days.

Bart trained Taj Rossi for owner Vic Peters and he won the Emirates from the top class mares Millefleurs and Toltrice.  And just for good measure, Taj Rossi backed up after the Cup carnival to defeat Imagele in a thrilling edition of the Sandown Guineas.

Bart won his first Emirates Stakes with 3yo filly Storm Queen in 1966.  She was a three-quarter sister to Dark Queen, the dam of Taj Rossi.