Auguste Rodin at morning work on The Front Gallop at Ballydoyle© Photo Healy Racing
Auguste Rodin heads 11 confirmations for Saturday’s King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Qipco Stakes.
Last year’s dual Derby and Irish Champion Stakes hero finished a bitterly disappointing last of 10 in Ascot’s midsummer highlight 12 months ago, but will be a hot favourite to set the record straight this weekend off the back of victory in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at the royal meeting last month.
The six-time Group One winner is one of five remaining contenders for trainer Aidan O’Brien, with Coronation Cup hero Luxembourg, Continuous, Hans Anderson and Point Lonsdale all standing their ground.
The two horses rated the biggest threat to Auguste Rodin by bookmakers are Ralph Beckett’s top-class mare Bluestocking and Charlie Appleby’s globetrotter Rebel’s Romance.
Bluestocking has made a flying start to her campaign by winning the Middleton Stakes at York and the Pretty Polly in Ireland, while Rebel’s Romance is set to return to home soil following high-profile wins in Qatar, Dubai and Hong Kong earlier in the year.
The only three-year-old in the field is David Menuisier’s Sunway, who filled the runner-up spot behind the O’Brien-trained Los Angeles in the Irish Derby a month ago.
The William Haggas-trained Dubai Honour, John and Thady Gosden’s Middle Earth and Francis-Henri Graffard’s French raider Goliath complete the potential line-up.
