Auguste Rodin’s racing swansong will take place in next Sunday’s Japan Cup although the scale of his task in Tokyo got underlined at the weekend when Europe’s top miler Charyn was out of the frame on his own final career start.
Roger Varian’s grey could finish only fifth in the Grade One Mile Championship behind the winner Soul Rush after a slow start compromised his chance.
Jockey Ryan Moore was fighting a losing battle after that and the Queen Anne, Prix Jacques Le Marois and QEII winner now retires to owner Nurlan Bizakov’s stud in France.
“He ran a very good race, but he was slow coming out of the gate, so the first furlong cost him in the end,” said Varian.
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“After the start he wasn’t able to secure a good position and afterwards, it was always going to be hard work for him – he finished strong, so I thought the horse performed very well – in defeat he proved himself to be very good horse.
“We have to accept the results although it is disappointing because we came here to win. But it has been a fantastic year for this horse to win three mile Group One races in Europe and we wanted to finish with another win here but it did not happen. It still was a very good race – in my opinion, just the start cost him,” Varian said.
Auguste Rodin is set to start his own new stallion career at Coolmore stud in Tipperary next year but has a chance to secure a seventh and final top-flight success on the track in the hugely prestigious Japan Cup.
The son of the legendary Japanese sire Deep Impact arrived in the Far East on Friday alongside the King George winner Goliath from France and Germany’s Fantastic Moon.
Auguste Rodin is a general 5-1 third favourite behind local stars Cervinia and Do Deuce to give his trainer Aidan O’Brien a first Japan Cup success.
“It was a long trip. It took us about 27½ hours to get here but everything is fine. The horse is eating and drinking well,” O’Brien’s representative Pat Keating told local media. “We plan to gallop him on the grass on Wednesday.”
Goliath won his warm-up for the Japanese task at Longchamp last month and appears to have made light of the marathon trip to the Far East.
“The transportation went well – the horses took a flight from Le Bourget via Frankfurt to Narita and completed the transportation in good condition. They are eating well and drinking well,” reported a spokesman for French trainer Francis Henri Graffard.
