O'Brien hopeful Auguste Rodin can emulate Nijinsky's Triple Crown

05/03/2023

Aidan O’Brien hopeful that Auguste Rodin can emulate Nijinsky’s Triple Crown… but powerhouse trainer admits Saturday’s 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket will be the toughest leg

Nijinsky won the Triple Crown – 2,000 Guineas, Derby and St Leger – in 1970
O’Brien narrowly missed out in 2012 when Camelot runner-up in the St Leger
Auguste Rodin, 2,000 Guineas 13-8 favourite, looks to have guaranteed stamina

Aidan O’Brien says Saturday’s Qipco 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket will be the toughest leg of the Flat racing Triple Crown for Auguste Rodin to win if he is to make history.

No colt has won the Triple Crown — the 2,000 Guineas, Derby and St Leger — since Nijinsky in 1970. But O’Brien went close in 2012 with Camelot, who was runner-up in the St Leger after winning the first two legs.

Auguste Rodin, the 2,000 Guineas 13-8 favourite who is expected to be ridden by Ryan Moore, looks to have guaranteed stamina.

His sire was the great Japanese middle-distance champion Deep Impact while his dam Rhododendron, the 2018 Lockinge Stakes winner, finished second to Enable in the 2017 Oaks.

But it is his speed that will be tested over a mile at Newmarket. Asked if the race might be the toughest of the Triple Crown for Auguste Rodin to win, O’Brien said: ‘It definitely will be. The shortest he would be bred to get is a mile but we feel it would not be fair to not give him the chance do it.

Auguste Rodin, expected to be ridden by Ryan Moore, is the 13-8 favourite for 2,000 Guineas

‘He has a lot of similarities (with Camelot). It’s class that those horses have, which comes out as a combination of stamina and speed.

‘If they have too much stamina they are too slow and too much speed means they don’t stay. Auguste Rodin has always exuded class from the very first time he worked.’

O’Brien’s other runner in the 2,000 Guineas, Little Big Bear, has a different profile to his stablemate. His speed is guaranteed but the question mark is his stamina and he will revert to sprinting if he doesn’t stay.

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