Auguste Rodin should return O'Brien to 2000 Guineas winner's circle
?q=100)
It has been four years since Aidan O’Brien trained the winner of the 2000 Guineas. That constitutes a drought. O’Brien won his first Guineas in 2002 and now has won 10 of them. Only once during this span of time has O’Brien gone more than two years without a Guineas win.
Win No. 11 should come Saturday, when O’Brien sends out heavily favored Auguste Rodin and heavily underrated Little Big Bear in the first classic of the European season.
Run down a straight mile over the Newmarket heath, the Guineas drew 14 entrants and appears to be a solid renewal.
Auguste Rodin was as low as 3-2 with some British bookmakers after O’Brien’s top rider Ryan Moore was named to ride the colt, a son of the great Japanese stallion Deep Impact. No doubt, Auguste Rodin has quality. He capped his 2-year-old campaign with a 3 1/2-length win in the Group 1 Vertem Futurity at Doncaster. That race was run over a heavy course and often produces winners better suited to the Derby at 1 1/2 miles than the Guineas. The average winning distance of Deep Impact’s racehorses is 10.4 furlongs, and Auguste Rodin is the first foal to race from the mare Rhodedenron, second in the one-mile 1000 Guineas and a Group 1 winner at 1 1/4 miles. The Newmarket course was listed good-to-firm Thursday. Maybe that will be fine, but Auguste Rodin was second in his career debut, his only start over a course that wasn’t soft, yielding, or heavy.
Little Big Bear comes from the opposite pole. Europe’s best 2-year-old sprinter, he won four of five and capped his campaign with a seven-length dusting of the capable Persian Force in the Group 1 Phoenix Stakes, run over a straight six furlongs. Little Big Bear, a scopey 2-year-old, has plenty of speed but throughout his juvenile season relaxed beautifully for his jockeys. He finished off his sprints with plenty of energy and while sire No Nay Never’s get tend toward speed over stamina, Little Big Bear is out of Adventure Seeker, a listed stakes winner over 1 5/16 miles and the dam of four winners between 1 1/4 and two miles. O’Brien thinks Little Big Bear stays a mile and has given jockey Wayne Lordan the task of nursing his speed.
Chaldean, a leading 2-year-old, ran his prep race, the April 22 Greenham Stakes, without jockey Frankie Dettori, who was dislodged after a bumping start. Nonetheless, he’s close to Little Big Bear for second choice in fixed-odds wagering. Sakhheer, a flashy sprint winner at age 2, also has attracted considerable support. The field includes Silver Knott, narrowly beaten in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf.
Post time for the Guineas is 11:40 a.m. Eastern.
A previous version of this article misstated the number of victories Aidan O'Brien has in the English 2000 Guineas. He has won the race 10 times, not nine, and will be going for his 11th victory in the 2023 running.
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.