Aidan O’Brien

Auguste Rodin looks good. Strides easily up the hill towards us, Rachel Richardson sitting motionless on his back.

“All good Rachel?”

“All good Aidan.”

The last time we saw Auguste Rodin racing, at Santa Anita in California last November, he was scooting up the inside under Ryan Moore and on his way to victory in the Breeders’ Cup Turf. He could have retired from racing then, a Breeders’ Cup Turf winner, a dual Derby winner, an Irish Champion Stakes winner, by the Japanese champion Deep Impact and out of the Galileo mare Rhododendron, herself a Group 1 winner at two, at three and at four. His value and his attraction as a stallion prospect is obvious, but his owners obviously felt that, before then, he had more left to give on the racecourse.

And Auguste Rodin is on his travels again this week, off to Dubai where, on Saturday, he will contest the Dubai Sheema Classic at Meydan, the feature middle-distance turf race on Dubai World Cup night.

“We’re very happy with him,” says Aidan O’Brien now. “He’s wintered very well. His coat looks good. He was at Dundalk three weeks ago and we were very happy with how he went there.”

Aidan O’Brien last won the Sheema Classic in 2013 with St Nicholas Abbey who, like Auguste Rodin, was a Vertem Futurity Trophy winner and a Breeders’ Cup Turf winner. But St Nicholas Abbey was six years old when he won the Sheema Classic, he had already won two Coronation Cups, and he would win another. Auguste Rodin has only just turned four, and he goes forward now with all the optimism and all the potential as the new flat season bursts into being.

“It was a big decision for the lads to keep him in training,” says the colt’s trainer. “Obviously we were hoping that they would decide to keep him in training, because he could be extra exciting this year. It looks like he has matured very well. Training him through the winter was a pleasure really and, if everything went well this year, I suppose the sky’s the limit.”

After Dubai, there are myriad options for Auguste Rodin. All those top-class middle-distance races. The Tattersalls Gold Cup at The Curragh at the end of May, the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot in mid-June, and on into the summer.

“He will be having his first run of the year in Dubai,” says his trainer, “and it’s a very competitive race to be going into. We could have a look at a dirt race later in Saratoga if everything went well. We were surprised by the way that he was cantering on the dirt in America. He’s by Deep Impact, and they’re not known as being dirt horses, but it was unusual how well he was cantering on it.”

City Of Troy is cantering well too, moving effortlessly up towards us under Dean Gallagher. The bay colt with the grey tail, and it’s not the way the light is reflecting on him – there is actually grey in his tail. You have to dig deeply to find any grey in his lineage. It’s all bay and chestnut in his immediate pedigree. But his dam Together Forever is by Galileo, whose grandsire is the famous Northern Dancer. Northern Dancer’s dam was Natalma, whose sire was Native Dancer. Native Dancer was grey.

City Of Troy was the outstanding juvenile colt of 2023, and the best odds you will get about him for this year’s 2000 Guineas is 8/11. Unusually, he could be Ballydoyle’s sole representative in the first colts’ Classic of 2024.

“He’s lovely,” says his trainer. “He looks like a very unusual horse. He’s a very well-balanced, uncomplicated horse. He has wintered very well. Everyone who is close to him is very happy with him.”

Winner of his maiden on his racecourse debut on Irish Derby weekend at The Curragh last July, after which Ryan Moore struggled to pull him up before he got to the end of the racecourse, City Of Troy was seriously impressive in winning the Group 2 Superlative Stakes at Newmarket’s July meeting two weeks later, and he rounded off last year’s campaign by winning the Dewhurst by three and a half lengths. Three for three as a two-year-old and boundless potential now at three.

“The horses are working on deep ground at the moment,” says Aidan, “and he shouldn’t like that at all. But he seems to handle it, and he handled a good cut in the ground in the Dewhurst, but he is a beautiful mover, and that’s what makes it so exciting, to see what he can do when he gets firmer ground. We’re looking forward to getting him going now.”

As long as ground conditions comply, the plan is to take City Of Troy along with his stable companions to Naas after racing this afternoon.

“If it went well in the Guineas,” says the trainer thoughtfully, “we’d be happy to step him up to a mile and a half for the Derby, and then maybe go to Saratoga for a 10-furlong race on the dirt, the Travers. He’s by Justify, and Justify is very exciting for us because he should be able to go on dirt as easily as he goes on grass. It’s going to be very interesting.”

Henry Longfellow and River Tiber will also go to Naas after racing this afternoon, all going well.

“Henry Longfellow could be one for the French Guineas or maybe the Irish Guineas. He handles cut in the ground, but I don’t think that firmer ground will be an issue. I wouldn’t rule out stepping him up in trip but, as of now, we’re viewing him as a miler. We view River Tiber as a miler too, he’s very pacey. His work is always good and he did great over the winter. We didn’t feel that he was absolutely 100% at Deauville or in the Middle Park last year, and there could be more to come from him now.”

Lots to look forward to now as the new flat season bursts into being.

© The Sunday Times, 24^th March 2024