John Ingles looks at occasions in the past when Aidan O’Brien has got horses to bounce back from disappointments on the big stage.
Can he do it again? Twelve months ago, Aidan O’Brien won the Derby with Auguste Rodin just four weeks after the same colt had been beaten more than twenty lengths as the 13/8 favourite for the 2000 Guineas. A similar task awaits stablemate City of Troy in this year’s Derby after his own flop at Newmarket at still shorter odds, 4/6, when he too managed to beat only two rivals.
In an up-and-down career, the Derby is not the only time that Auguste Rodin has recovered his high-class form after bombing out. He was as good as pulled up by Ryan Moore when trailing home in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes later last summer but whatever the problem was at Ascot, O’Brien had Auguste Rodin right back to form to end his three-year-old campaign with wins in the Irish Champion Stakes and Breeders’ Cup Turf. After another no-show on his return in Dubai in March, Auguste Rodin soon put that dismal effort behind him when a creditable runner-up in Sunday’s Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh.
Auguste Rodin wasn’t his stable’s only disappointment in last year’s 2000 Guineas. The top-rated two-year-old of the previous season, Little Big Bear, finished last of all but with that run under his belt and a change of trip – dropping back in his case – he made a successful return to sprinting in the Sandy Lane Stakes at Haydock before finishing second in the Commonwealth Cup.
O’Brien has trained more high-class performers than most and inevitably some of those have had to bounce back from lesser efforts in the course of their careers. Here’s a reminder of some of them.
HAWK WING
2003 Lockinge Stakes
Hawk Wing was a high-class three-year-old, and while his only win that season came in the Eclipse, he finished second when favourite for his other starts in Europe that year, including in the 2000 Guineas, when unluckily beaten by stablemate Rock of Gibraltar, and the Derby.
On his final start at three, Hawk Wing finished a well-beaten seventh on his dirt debut in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Arlington. But having ended that year with one of his worst performances, he came back at four with a spectacular success in the Lockinge Stakes having had some ‘minor niggles’ dealt with over the winter according to his trainer.
Sent straight into the lead at Newbury by Mick Kinane, Hawk Wing was never seriously threatened and spreadeagled his field with a top-drawer performance, pulling eleven lengths clear of runner-up Where Or When.
SOLDIER OF FORTUNE
2007 Irish Derby
Soldier of Fortune goes down as another of the easiest Group 1 winners that O’Brien has trained, though his nine-length romp in the Irish Derby came hot on the heels of an eight-length defeat in the Derby at Epsom.
Coming off a win in the Chester Vase, Soldier of Fortune ran a sound enough race at Epsom but was unable to find a change of pace in finishing fifth behind impressive winning favourite Authorized.
But under softer conditions at the Curragh, Soldier of Fortune was backed to turn that form around with stablemate Eagle Mountain, who had been runner-up at Epsom, and duly left that effort behind, impressing with the way he powered clear in the last couple of furlongs to leave Eagle Mountain a long way back in third.
YEATS
2009 Gold Cup
Yeats was prepared for his second and third Gold Cups with straightforward wins in the Vintage Crop Stakes at Navan but the following year he was beaten more than thirty lengths in that listed contest and evidently very much in need of the run.
O’Brien had him spot on for the big day, though, as the eight-year-old Yeats, the 6/4 favourite, silenced the doubters by becoming the first horse to win the Gold Cup four times.
O’Brien had also produced a fine training performance when Yeats won his first Gold Cup in 2006. He was making his first start since finishing only sixth in the Canadian International the previous autumn as an infected joint had prevented him having a prep run before Ascot.
ST NICHOLAS ABBEY
2011 season
Long before Auguste Rodin and City of Troy, St Nicholas Abbey was another Ballydoyle hotpot turned over in the 2000 Guineas. Sent off the even-money favourite after an unbeaten two-year-old campaign, St Nicholas Abbey remained the ante-post favourite for the Derby despite finishing only sixth behind Makfi at Newmarket but that proved to be his only start that year.
‘I made a mess of him last year, if I hadn’t trained him for the Guineas his life story would have been different,’ said O’Brien later with typical self-deprecation.
St Nicholas Abbey was disappointing at the Curragh on his initial return but his trainer can have had few regrets about the way the rest of his four-year-old season, or career for that matter, panned out, with St Nicholas Abbey going on to win the Ormonde Stakes at Chester, the Coronation Cup (the first of three wins in that race) and the Breeders’ Cup Turf.
HIGHLAND REEL
2017 Coronation Cup
Highland Reel was a similar type to St Nicholas Abbey, he too counting the Breeders’ Cup Turf and Coronation Cup among his wins in a fine middle-distance career. St Nicholas Abbey prefaced his final Coronation Cup win with victory in the Dubai Sheema Classic in 2013, a race which Highland Reel attempted to win for Ballydoyle four years later.
Fourth in the same race the year before, Highland Reel disappointed as the 5/2 second favourite on softer ground than ideal, finishing last in a field of seven when probably needing his first run since Hong Kong the previous December.
With that run under his belt, Highland Reel wasted no time getting back to form under firmer conditions at Epsom where he was sent off favourite and made all the running in the Coronation Cup.
U S NAVY FLAG
2018 July Cup
O’Brien had won the July Cup much earlier in his career with Stravinsky and Mozart who proved top-class sprinters after being tried over further and a drop back in trip also proved key to the previous season’s Middle Park and Dewhurst winner U S Navy Flag recording a career best in the same race in 2018.
While U S Navy Flag had stayed a mile sufficiently well to finish second in the Irish 2000 Guineas when ridden from the front, he weakened to beat only one home in the St James’s Palace Stakes next time having raced into a clear lead before halfway.
The July Cup allowed him to use that speed to much better effect under another aggressive ride from Ryan Moore as he took a couple of lengths out of his field two furlongs out and then found extra to pull away again when runner-up Brando closed to within a neck of him.
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