Key questions for the 2024 Flat season set to feature Auguste Rodin and City of Troy
Tony McFadden highlights three key questions for the 2024 Flat turf season which kicked off in Britain at Doncaster on Saturday.
Will we finally see a colt win the Triple Crown?
It has been more than 50 years since Nijinsky completed the colts' Triple Crown of the 2000 Guineas, Derby and St Leger, while it's been 12 years since a horse even managed to win the first two legs to set themselves up for a tilt at the famous treble.
Camelot famously came up short at Doncaster for Aidan O'Brien and the Coolmore partners, enduring a St Leger defeat at odds of 2/5, but those connections are entitled to dream that they have another colt capable of completing the feat.
City of Troy is around a 6/1 shot to complete the Triple Crown, which on the face of it seems remarkably short for a horse to do something no colt has done in the last half-century and win three Classics at distances from between a mile to an extended mile and three-quarters. However, that price becomes more understandable when you consider that City of Troy is only 8/11 for the 2000 Guineas and 2/1 for the Derby after looking something special during a two-year-old campaign that comprised three wins from as many starts and saw him achieve a season-leading Timeform rating of 125p.
City of Troy also has the Triple Crown in his blood, albeit the US version courtesy of his sire Justify who swept all before him during a very short but successful career in 2018. And, unsurprisingly for a horse representing these powerhouse connections, there are Classic influences on the dam's side of City of Troy's pedigree as Together Forever is a daughter of Derby winner Galileo and a sister to Oaks winner Forever Together.
Is Auguste Rodin the colt to break the Derby hoodoo?
Auguste Rodin was the great Triple Crown hope 12 months ago but he ran a shocker to spurn what was an excellent opportunity in the 2000 Guineas, with Chaldean posting one of the lowest Timeform ratings for a winner of the race this century.
That 12th of 14 wasn't the only flop from Auguste Rodin last season as he ran even worse in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot where he was a tailed-off last of ten. However, in the interim he had shown his class by landing the Derby at Epsom (replay below) and the Irish Derby at the Curragh, and he bounced back from his Ascot disappointment to also land the Irish Champion Stakes and Breeders' Cup Turf.
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Those victories placed Auguste Rodin in rare company as he became just the fifth Derby winner to secure at least three more Group 1s as a three-year-old since the European Pattern was established in 1971.
Auguste Rodin's end-of-season Timeform rating of 129 means he isn't rated nearly as highly as the others who achieved the feat - Mill Reef (141), Troy (137), Sea The Stars (140) and Golden Horn (134) - but there is still time for him to enhance his standing as he'll be back at four.
It's great for the sport that one of the star performers from 2023 will be back in action, particularly as Ace Impact and Equinox have both been retired, but let's hope he fares better than the recent Derby winners who were kept in training.
As four-year-olds, Desert Crown suffered defeat on his only start, Adayar won a conditions race but had to settle for second in the Champion Stakes, Serpentine was unsuccessfully campaigned as a stayer (and suffered the ignominy of later being gelded), Anthony Van Dyck only won the Prix Foy and met a tragic end in the Melbourne Cup, and Masar was well beaten on both outings. The four Derby winners between 2014 and 2017 were all retired at three, but prior to that Camelot and Ruler of the World had been disappointing and even Workforce, who had been such a sensational Derby winner, came up short at the top level as a four-year-old. Admittedly, most Derby winners in the first decade of the 21st century were retired at three but it's still surprising you have to go all the way back to High Chaparral, the 2002 Classic hero, to find the last one who won in Group 1 company at four.
Will Kieran Shoemark make the most of a huge opportunity?
Frankie Dettori may have rowed back on his decision to retire but his relocation to the States has seemingly presented Kieran Shoemark with a huge opportunity as the Gosden stable's go-to rider.
Shoemark was handed some notable rides by the Gosdens last season, deputising for a suspended Dettori aboard Oaks winner Soul Sister in the Grand Prix de Paris and then picking up a prize spare ride on Gregory in the St Leger, and in a further show of faith he will be aboard Coronation Cup winner Emily Upjohn when she makes her reappearance in the Dubai Sheema Classic at Meydan next weekend.
If Shoemark is indeed number one for the Gosdens - and that seems to be the case given he's ridden more of the stable's horses than anyone else this year and has been handed a ride on one of the yard's top performers in Emily Upjohn - then it represents a remarkable rise for a rider whose highest position in the jockeys' championship was 16th in 2021. Arguably only the number one role for Godolphin is a bigger job for a jockey based in Britain so this is the chance of a lifetime.
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