Ireland’s 2024 flat season may be over but Auguste Rodin still has a shot at delivering Aidan O’Brien a breakthrough international success in Tokyo later this month. The 2023 Epsom and Curragh Derby hero is a 5/1 second favourite in some ante-post lists for the $7.6 million Japan Cup in three weeks’ time before retiring to the breeding shed at Coolmore Stud in Co Tipperary.
As a son of the most famous Japanese racehorse of all, Deep Impact, the Ballydoyle star’s raid is already generating significant anticipation in the Far East. It also gives O’Brien a chance to fill in a rare gap on his global CV. Successful at Group One level around the world, top-flight success has eluded O’Brien in Japan. He last had Japan Cup runners in 2021 and had previously been out of luck with horses such as Powerscourt and Joshua Tree.
After City Of Troy’s bitterly disappointing final career start in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at the weekend, a win in Japan for Auguste Rodin would put a seal on top of another hugely successful season for the Irishman.
Only local star Do Deuce is ahead of Auguste Rodin in the betting, while other international stars set to make the trip are Germany’s Fantastic Moon and the French-trained King George winner Goliath.
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Auguste Rodin is from the final small crop of Deep Impact, the superstar racehorse who became an 11-time champion sire in Japan before his death in 2019, aged 17.
Ireland’s only previous Japan Cup success came with the late Frank Dunne-owned and trained mare Stanerra, in 1983. The race was won a year ago by the world champion performer Equinox in a spectacularly dominant display.
Before then Europe’s final Group One prize of 2024, the €155,000 Grosser Preis von Bayern, will take place in Germany this Sunday at the Munich track. Among the possible foreign contingent set to line up are Godolphin’s Ancient Wisdom and Sir Mark Prescott’s Tiffany. Prescott won the mile and a half contest in 2021 with the subsequent Arc winner Alpinista.
Ancient Wisdom would up his two-year-old career with a Futurity success in Doncaster but has had just three starts this season. He was successful in the last of them, a Group Three at Newmarket in July.
In other news Adrian Murray’s Hill Road will continue his career on dirt in the US after a fine third place effort in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile contest at Del Mar.
“He’s going to be staying in America now, he’s going to concentrate on the dirt. I’m not sure where he’s going yet, I don’t know that they (AMO Racing) have decided regarding who he’s going to go to. They’ll see how he goes over there, how he takes to the dirt – if he goes well he could be a horse for the Kentucky Derby,” said Murray.
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