Irish Derby reaction: Graham Cunningham on Auguste Rodin win

By Graham Cunningham

Horse Racing

Mon July 03, 2023 · 1y ago

He was at the Curragh on Sunday to see Auguste Rodin win the Irish Derby and Graham Cunningham was able to call on Mick Kinane as an expert witness.

Just after six on a breezy Sunday afternoon in Kildare and I’m the only sober citizen on a packed Fosters courtesy bus from the Curragh back to Newbridge.

About 60 young lads and lasses dressed to kill are belting out ‘Rock Me Mama Like A Wagon Wheel’ with way more gusto than the song’s original writer Bob Dylan ever managed and I’m not sure I’ve ever felt quite so old – or envious.

This isn’t the place for in-depth analysis of what Auguste Rodin achieved in giving Ryan Moore his first Irish Derby success but the winner’s enclosure a couple of hours earlier certainly was – and the team behind the winner were all singing from the same hymn sheet.

Double celebration for Ryan Moore and Aidan O'Brien

“He shut down a bit” and “he was just waiting in front” were Ryan’s key comments. Aidan followed up with “it was all happening too slow” and “it didn’t work out proper for him,” while Michael Tabor followed up with “I don’t think we saw the real Auguste Rodin” before joking that “it means we get a good price next time.”

Coolmore sage John Magnier contented himself with reflecting on the “rarified atmosphere” Auguste Rodin occupies after sealing the Epsom/Curragh double but a driven-out defeat of a carefully ridden 33-1 stablemate Adelaide River leaves one key question hanging in the air.

Is Auguste Rodin truly exceptional or just very good?

The case for the defence is that he beat his Epsom victims White Birch and Sprewell by even further this time and never looked like getting beat as the runner-up rallied on Sunday in a race that changed appreciably when poor San Antonio broke a leg on the home turn.

And the case for the prosecution is that he didn’t seal the deal in anything like the same manner that past dual Derby winners like Galileo and High Chaparral did.

Calling Mick Kinane...

Time to call an expert witness to the stand.

Mick Kinane barely had an anxious moment in partnering that stellar pair to Irish Derby victory and, while conceding that Auguste Rodin has work to do to match their exploits, his instant reaction was to accentuate the positive.

“Look at the way he travelled in that strong wind down the far side and look at his auld ears pricking once he hit the front,” he said. “I’d say there’s still plenty in the locker and I’d love to see him in a really good race back at a mile and a quarter this season.”

Galileo turned out less than four weeks after his Curragh win and got the better of a memorable King George tussle with the world-class five-year-old Fantastic Light but Kinane feels that duel left something of a mark and connections were in no rush to commit their latest star to a battle with Pyledriver and company.

And, with Aidan saying that “we don’t want to expose him to too much hardship, that looks sensible.

Veteran RP scribe Alan Sweetman was right to point out that the decision to inject another 250,000 Euro into this year’s Derby prize fund was “a generous gesture greeted with profound indifference by overseas trainers.”

Global appeal of Dual Derby hero

There’s no question that Auguste Rodin will face sterner tests of his credentials in the second half of the season and the business brains of Coolmore need to polish their latest jewel with care to maximise his stallion appeal.

Brian O’Connor of the Irish Times, summed up the global appeal of Auguste Rodin beautifully by describing him as “a living breathing mix of racing’s old world and the emergence of Japan as the sport’s newest superpower.”

Hopes of a first Triple Crown since Nijinsky came to nothing on a rough day at Newmarket but, with two Derbies in the bag, dreams of a different kind can now be entertained for a colt who is the spitting image of his sire Deep Impact and grandsire Sunday Silence.

Will he try to do what Deep Impact couldn’t in the 2006 Arc? Or might he try to emulate Sunday Silence’s unforgettable defeat of Easy Goer in the 1989 Breeders’ Cup Classic?

Kinane’s suggestion that a short break followed by the Juddmonte International at York might be the ideal springboard to an autumn campaign seems sensible.

As ever, racing’s Wagon Wheel turns and with that in mind it seems highly appropriate that the Fosters Fun Bus crew have just burst out into a boisterous rendition of 'Don't Stop Believing'. They didn't. Even after Newmarket.

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