HOPEFULLY there will be many more opportunities to write about Auguste Rodin, as the racing world waits in anticipation for confirmation that the brilliant winner of the $4 million, Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf will stay in training for another year.

He has featured many times in this column, so for now it will suffice to provide a synopsis of his family, as it is one of the most noted of recent years. By a multiple Japanese champion in Deep Impact (Sunday Silence) and out of a Group 1-winning daughter of Coolmore’s great Galileo (Sadler’s Wells), Auguste Rodin will be a huge stallion hope for John Magnier’s empire.

Auguste Rodin is one of just a handful of foals born in 2020 following the death of Deep Impact at 17. In his last year at stud, and thanks to difficulties with his neck, Deep Impact was restricted to just 20 mares, at a fee of €330,000, and about half of them went in foal.

Two were born in Ireland, bred by Magnier and partners, and they are Auguste Rodin, and the Group 3 Gallinule Stakes winner, Drumroll.

After his win in the Group 1 Vertem Futurity, Aidan O’Brian said Auguste Rodin was “probably the most exciting horse we have ever had”. His win at the weekend certainly puts him up with the best from Ballydoyle. He is one of 59 Group/Grade 1 winners for Deep Impact, and one of many such winners to appear on the dam side of the pedigree. He is the first foal of the triple Group 1 winner Rhododendron, and she has since produced a colt foal this year by Dubawi (Dubai Millennium).

Rhododendron won a Group 1 race in all three seasons she raced, the Fillies’ Mile at two, the Prix de l’Opera at three and the Lockinge Stakes in her final season. However, she was eclipsed by her full-sister Magical (Galileo) as that mare’s seven Group 1 wins puts her among the elite trained at Ballydoyle.

Aidan O’Brien has also saddled Highland Reel, Minding, Rock Of Gibraltar and Yeats to win seven times at the highest level on the flat.

Rhododendron and Magical, along with their group-winning own-brother Flying The Flag (Galileo) are the best of the five winners from the Trevor Stewart-bred Halfway To Heaven (Pivotal), a three-time Group 1 winner following victories in the Irish 1000 Guineas, Nassau Stakes and Sun Chariot Stakes.

She, in turn, is the best of 10 winners produced by Group 2 King’s Stand Stakes (now Group 1) winner Cassandra Go (Indian Ridge). Casandra Go is the grandam of the US Grade 1 winner Photo Call (Galileo), and last year’s Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf winner, Victoria Road, a son of Saxon Warrior (Deep Impact).

The Master

Finally, Master Of The Seas is in great fettle and recently recorded his first Grade 1 success with his win in the Woodbine Mile.

He wasted no time in doubling up, stealing victory in the final strides from another Godolphin runner, Mawj, in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile. This was a seventh win at the Breeders’ Cup for the five-year-old gelding’s sire, Dubawi (Dubai Millennium).

A Godolphin homebred, Master of The Seas is the first Group or Grade 1 winner by Dubawi out of a daughter of Danehill (Danzig). His dam Firth Of Lorne, a listed winner, was beaten a length in the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches-French 1000 Guineas, and another of her sons, Latharnach (Iffraaj), was runner-up to Gleneagles in the Group 1 St James’s Palace Stakes.

A daughter of Firth Of Lorne, the Group 3 UAE Oaks winner Falls Of Lora (Street Cry), is the dam of a pair of Group/Grade 1 winners. One is a son of Dubawi, and won his Grade 1 in Canada too. Albahr won the Grade 1 Summer Stakes, while his half-brother Cascadian (New Approach) in Australia has won the Group 1 the All Aged Stakes, Australian Cup and Doncaster Mile Handicap. Not only that, but Firth Of Lorne’s daughter Bint Almatar (Kingmambo) bred the recent Group 1 Metropolitan winner Just Fine (Sea The Stars).