Auguste Rodin to shuttle to Windsor Park
Dual Derby hero and six-time elite-level winner Auguste Rodin (Deep Impact) will shuttle to Windsor Park Stud in New Zealand and he will stand his first southern hemisphere season for an introductory fee of NZ$30,000 (plus GST).
From the final crop of the late Japanese phenomenon Deep Impact (Sunday Silence), Auguste Rodin won Group 1s from two to four for Aidan O’Brien and the Coolmore team.
A winner on his second start at two, he went on to land his first Group contest in the Champions Juvenile Stakes (Gr 2, 1m) at Leopardstown before breaking through at the top-level in the Futurity Trophy (Gr 1, 1m) at Doncaster.
Auguste Rodin won the Epsom Derby (Gr 1, 1m 4f) on his second start at three, beating subsequent Champion Stakes (Gr 1, 1m 2f) hero King Of Steel (Wootton Bassett), before landing the Irish equivalent a month later. He also took out the Irish Champion Stakes (Gr 1, 1m 2f) and Breeders’ Cup Turf (Gr 1, 12f) that term.
Kept in training at four, Auguste Rodin posted an impressive performance to win the Prince of Wales’s Stakes (Gr 1, 1m 2f), before finishing a neck second to Economics (Night Of Thunder) when attempting to defend his Irish Champion Stakes title.
The five-year-old boasts six multiple champion sires in his first three generations and is the first foal out of Galileo’s (Sadler’s Wells) outstanding Rhododendron, a winner of the Fillies’ Mile (Gr 1, 1m), Prix de l’Opera (Gr 1, 2000m) and Lockinge Stakes (Gr 1, 1m).
Rhododendron is in turn a sister to the brilliant Magical, a winner of seven Group 1s including two Irish Champion Stakes and the Champion Stakes at Ascot. The two mares are out of the Pivotal (Polar Falcon) mare Halfway To Heaven, winner of the Irish 1,000 Guineas (Gr 1, 1m), Nassau Stakes (Gr 1, 1m 2f) and Sun Chariot Stakes (Gr 1, 1m).
Auguste Rodin’s third dam is the Group 1-placed Cassandra Go (Indian Ridge), a winner of the King’s Stand Stakes (Gr 2, 5f) when it was run as a Group 2 and the Temple Stakes (Gr 2, 5f).
Windsor Park principal Rodney Schick told ANZ Bloodstock News: “It’s really exciting. We’ve had a great relationship with Coolmore for 26 years now and he certainly is right up there with some of the best we’ve had.
“Being a son of Deep Impact is very exciting but also his race record is the equivalent to High Chaparral who we had so much success with in New Zealand and Australia, and what he’s doing is a sire of sires now is great too. We’re just looking forward to bringing him over and putting him into the market and seeing him in New Zealand.
“The one thing I love to see in a stallion is that they can come out early and be a two-year-old and then train on at three and four. You don’t see as much now with stallions going to stud, but he certainly did it at the front-end and the back-end [of his career] and from 1400 [metres] to 2400 [metres], so he’s such an exciting horse.
“He has an amazing pedigree, from his sire line and all through his dam line as well, as they say, he ticks all the boxes.
“Circus Maximus is a resident with us here at Windsor Park now and Paddington will be shuttling back next year. He got over one hundred mares in foal last year so really excited to have all those horses. We’ve got Profondo there who’s also a son of Deep Impact and Shamexpress who is doing a huge job at the moment, he’s always struggled for numbers but he’s done a great job.”
Auguste Rodin takes his place on Windsor Park’s stallion roster with fellow Coolmore sire Paddington, as well as Circus Maximus (Galileo) and Shamexpress (O’Reilly), sire of the world’s highest-rated sprinter in Ka Ying Rising.