Auguste Rodin becomes Aidan O’Brien’s 11th Futurity winner and sire Deep Impact’s second
“He has a beautiful mind, very clear winded, lovely mover, he has everything,” said O’Brien to ITV Racing after Auguste Rodin’s clear-cut victory in the Group 1 Vertem Futurity. “It was a very brave to send the mare to Japan to Deep Impact.”
Auguste Rodin is the late sire Deep Impact’s 57th Group or Grade 1 winner, his 10th top-level two-year-old winner – the colt putting his name alongside Saxon Warrior, a previous Futurity Stakes winner, also by Deep Impact and out of a Galileo mare. They are the only European juvenile Group 1 winners by the nine-time champion Japanese sire and connections will be hoping that the younger horse following in Saxon Warrior footsteps – he won the 2017 running of the Futurity and went on to 2,000 Guineas success.
Of plans, O’Brien said: “The lads will make the decision as always, but he will be trained for a Classic and could be trained for a Guineas but he’ll be a very exciting horse as he will be one for 1m2f, but he could get 1m4f as well.”
The colt put any pre-race concerns about the ground to rest with his three and a half-length win from Epictetus (Kingman-Thistle Bird (Selkirk) and the errant Holloway Boy (Ulysses-Sultry (Pivotal).
He is a beautiful mover, always showed an awful lot of quality, it was always going to be a messy race, ground in the middle was bad. He is an exciting horse,” said jockey Ryan Moore. “He is by Deep Impact, they usually stay fairly well, his dam won the Lockinge as a four-year-old and was not shot of pace. This guy has plenty pace, too.”
Auguste Rodin is the first foal out of the triple Group 1 winner Rhododendron (Galileo), sister to the Group 1 winner Magical, a daughter of Halfway To Heaven (Pivotal) and a grand-daughter of Cassandra Go (Indian Ridge), bought by Trevor Stewart in 1997 at the Tattersalls Houghton Sale for 200,000gns. Halfway To Heaven was purchased by Coolmore at the 2006 Goffs Million from Ballyhimikin Stud for €450,000.
Auguste Rodin is now a general 5-1 chance for the 2,000 Guineas.