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Derby winner Auguste Rodin and a memorable three-year-old campaign
Adam Houghton discusses all things Auguste Rodin, who is set to return to the track as a four-year-old next season.
I crossed paths with Auguste Rodin twice during what was a rollercoaster of a campaign for the brilliant son of Deep Impact in 2023. Can you guess the two races I was there for?
In a season when Auguste Rodin did so much right, winning four of his six starts at the top level, I just happened to be there the two days when pretty much everything went wrong, first at Newmarket when he beat only two home in the 2000 Guineas and then at Ascot when he was to all intents and purposes pulled up in the King George.
Perhaps I could have been forgiven if I wasn’t a big fan of the horse in light of those first-hand disappointments, joining the naysayers, but in fact the opposite is true.
Indeed, the whole reason I went to Newmarket in the first place was because I’d been so taken with Auguste Rodin when I’d been at Doncaster to see him win the Futurity Trophy the previous autumn – a point of mitigation should any of the Coolmore team wish me to keep a safe distance from the colt when he returns for a four-year-old campaign in 2024.
I’d well and truly bought into the hype about Auguste Rodin being a potential Triple Crown contender and the hope was that we’d see a statement performance from him when he took the first step on that road in the 2000 Guineas.
Alas, that dream died in the midst of a Newmarket monsoon, but make no mistake, the three-year-old season Auguste Rodin has managed to rescue in the six months since is still one of impressive achievement.
Post-Derby exploits put Rodin in rare company
There was the other bump in the road in the King George, but by then Auguste Rodin was already a dual Derby winner having got the job done stylishly at Epsom and in rather more workmanlike fashion at the Curragh.
True, it’s nothing out of the ordinary for a horse to complete that double – Auguste Rodin was the seventh to do it since the turn of the century – but what is rare is for them to add to that tally with further top-level success in the latter stages of the campaign, as Auguste Rodin did when winning the Irish Champion Stakes and Breeders’ Cup Turf.
Some context was provided in the Twitter post below from Gareth Flynn (@garethflynn) which was given another airing by Timeform’s Flat Editor, David Johnson, in the latest edition of the Sporting Life podcast.
Mill Reef, Troy, Sea The Stars, Golden Horn, Auguste Rodin: the only Derby winners to add at least three more Group 1s before the end of the year since the Pattern was introduced in 1971.
— Gareth Flynn (@garethflynn) November 4, 2023
In that group Auguste Rodin is rubbing shoulders with some giants of the sport.
Back in 1971, Mill Reef was a brilliant winner of the Derby for Ian Balding before going on to add the Eclipse, King George and Arc to his tally, proving himself one of the best middle-distance performers in Timeform’s experience with a rating of 141.
A seven-length winner of the Derby in 1979, Troy didn’t achieve quite the same heights as Mill Reef with a rating of 137, though further victories in the Irish Derby, King George and Benson and Hedges Gold Cup (run today as the Juddmonte International) featured on a similarly impressive CV.
Few CVs come better than that of Sea The Stars, who completed one of the most memorable three-year-old seasons in the history of the turf in 2009, following his wins in the 2000 Guineas and Derby with four more top-level strikes in the Eclipse, Juddmonte International, Irish Champion and Arc. He was another outstanding colt with a rating of 140.
And then there was Golden Horn, who followed a very similar path to Sea The Stars after his Derby victory in 2015. Though turned over at short odds in the International, he did win the Eclipse, Irish Champion and Arc on his way to a lofty rating of 134.
One of the best Derby winners of recent years
In pure form terms, Auguste Rodin is perhaps a notch or two below the aforementioned quartet in the pantheon of Flat racing greats, but at the very least he’s one of the best Derby winners in the last decade with a Timeform rating of 129, behind only Australia (132 in 2014), Golden Horn (134 in 2015) and Adayar (131 in 2021) on their end-of-season figures.
Above all else, it’s just been refreshing to see a Derby hero greatly enhance his reputation in the second half of the campaign, all too rare in the recent history of what is supposed to be the blue riband of our sport.
Indeed, it’s remarkable to think that 11 of the 24 Derby winners this century can count that as the final top-level success of their career. They include five of the last seven before Auguste Rodin came along, with the other two, Harzand (Irish Derby) and Adayar (King George), both winning just one more Group 1 apiece.
A record-extending ninth winner of the Derby for trainer Aidan O’Brien, Auguste Rodin also ranks highly in that group in terms of what they achieved in their three-year-old season, behind only Galileo (134 in 2001), High Chaparral (130 in 2002) and Australia (132 in 2014) on ratings.
It’s to his credit that Auguste Rodin has outdone that trio by winning the Derby plus three more Group 1 races as a three-year-old, with Galileo (Irish Derby and King George), High Chaparral (Irish Derby and Breeders’ Cup Turf) and Australia (Irish Derby and Juddmonte International) all managing just the two post-Epsom.
Incidentally, O’Brien is also responsible for four of the 11 Derby winners this century who failed to add to their top-level tally, namely Ruler of The World (2013), Wings of Eagles (2017), Anthony Van Dyck (2019) and Serpentine (2020).
That just leaves Camelot, the 2000 Guineas/Derby winner who I hoped – no, expected – to see complete the Triple Crown when I followed him to Doncaster for the St Leger in 2012.
Alas, it wasn’t to be then, either. Camelot was forced to settle for the runner-up spot behind Encke on Town Moor and his only other Group 1 win that year came in the Irish Derby after his early-season exploits had promised so much more.
Autumn revival and a 2024 return
Dealing with disappointment is part and parcel of the sport and nobody does it better than O’Brien, always gracious in defeat and always thinking about how he can turn things around the next time.
As much as I’d love to take the credit for Auguste Rodin’s late-season revival having stayed away from Leopardstown and Santa Anita, it was only the genius of O’Brien that could have brought him back after his lifeless run in the King George.
Better than ever when beating stable companion Luxembourg in the Irish Champion, he then shone under an inspired ride from Ryan Moore when following up in the Breeders’ Cup Turf, though the way he idled in front late on suggests he was simply much the best horse on the day with a fair bit left in the locker.
And that’s the most exciting thing about Auguste Rodin. He might have put together one of the most memorable three-year-old campaigns of recent times – not always for the right reasons – but the feeling remains that we’ve still only scratched the surface of his potential.
No doubt he’ll be hugely popular with breeders when he retires to stud given his blue-blooded pedigree, being by Japanese superstar Deep Impact and out of one of Galileo’s most-talented daughters, Rhododendron, a Group 1 winner at two, three and four.
But I can't be alone in being delighted by the news that Auguste Rodin will continue his racing career as a four-year-old to find out just how good he is. I can’t promise I’ll stay away from the horse when he returns. In fact, I can hardly wait to see him again in 2024.
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