Aidan O’Brien struggles to explain Auguste Rodin drop-off at Ascot… with horse that won at Epsom and Curragh finishing LAST in the King George

It was there, everywhere you looked: bewilderment. Total bewilderment. This was not meant to happen to Auguste Rodin. Not here, not now.

Aidan O’Brien is adept at treating the twin imposters of triumph and disaster in equal measure but even he was utterly flabbergasted by the performance of his dual-Derby hero, from whom big, big things were expected.

So brilliant on the first Saturday of June when winning at Epsom and teak-tough when following up at The Curragh in the Irish equivalent, the feeling within Ballydoyle — O’Brien’s fabled training establishment — was that everything was in place for Auguste Rodin’s pursuit of greatness.

The King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Qipco Stakes is the most brilliant race, its roll of honour decorated by names of the immortals. For a three-year-old to win it, they have to be something out of the ordinary, but there was the tantalising prospect that this is what Auguste Rodin was going to be.

O’Brien clearly believed it. After winning at Epsom, he described the colt as ‘the most important we’ve ever had’ due to its pedigree: his father is the Japanese champion Deep Impact, his mother the quite brilliant filly Rhododendron, who won all manner of top races.

Trainer O’Brien struggled to explain Auguste Rodin’s drop-off in power in the King George 

The horse of regal genes who won at Epsom and Curragh finished last in the race at Ascot 

Those regal genes have been passed down. Auguste Rodin is named after French sculptor and to walk alongside him for 10 minutes, from the racecourse stables, up the hill, across Ascot High Street and onto the course, left you in awe.

Powerful yet lithe, elegant when on the move, his ribcage rippled and he had been chiselled to perfection: he led O’Brien’s four runners on their way, when the call came for them to mobilise at 2.54pm, strutting like the Alpha Male of the group.

Half-an-hour later, as he prowled the pre-parade ring, you were reminded of a boxer in his dressing room in the moments before a fight: adrenaline were testosterone was flowing through him, his teeth grinding in impatience. ‘Let me at them!’ he seemed to be saying. ‘Let me at them!’

When Ryan Moore jumped onto his back and trotted him down the walkway to the track, Auguste Rodin gripped hold of the bridle and looked to be giving his jockey the feel he did that morning in February 2022 at Ballydoyle.

Moore instantly knew then he was sitting on a potential champion. So all was set. O’Brien’s three other runners — Luxembourg, Point Lonsdale and Bolshoi Ballet — set a relentless pace and, initially, you looked at Moore, in his orange-and-blue silks, and everything seemed to be going to plan. 

Coming out of Swinley Bottom, however, things dramatically changed. As Hukum and Westover put their handsome heads down and scampered for the finish line, Auguste Rodin had long since disappeared from view.

He was last to cross the line, his legs having gone to jelly. Moore pursed his lips, unable to say anything to O’Brien’s equally befuddled head lad Pat Keating, who had come to ask for an immediate reaction.

Jockey Ryan Moore said that Auguste Rodin ‘never flared up at all’, according to O’Brien

Jim Crowley rode to victory with Hukum, a horse who has made a winning start to his season

Auguste Rodin was taken under the shade of some trees, not far from another who had disappointed in Frankie Dettori’s mount Emily Upjohn, and given a reviving bucket of water, which he glugged down.

‘Ryan just said he never flared up at all, you know?’ said O’Brien, his puzzlement exacerbated by the fact King Of Steel, the horse Auguste Rodin had run down so brilliantly at Epsom, finished third. 

‘He was pushing at halfway,’ O’Brien added, trying to process it. ‘It was a very unusual run.

‘He looked magnificent and we were very happy. He was doing everything great. But that’s the way. Hopefully something will come to light in the next few days.

‘Ryan did the right thing. He didn’t take any chances when he felt the power disappearing. And, for some reason, the power did disappear.’

The question is: has it gone for good? O’Brien has won the King George four times but only once with a horse of Auguste Rodin’s age — the incomparable Galileo, in 2001 — yet you sensed they felt this was going to be number two yesterday.

‘What happened there, Aidan?’ said a group of racegoers who had stopped him en route to debrief racecourse officials for a selfie.

‘I don’t know lads,’ came the reply. He was right. None of us did.