Buick sticks to script as Notable Speech masters Mile rivals

Notable Speech corrected the record in Del Mar to enhance Charlie Appleby’s phenomenal CV in the Fanduel Breeders’ Cup Mile.

Third in this event last year, the former 2000 Guineas hero has been a consistent performer all season and arrived on the back of a timely success on his travels in the Woodbine Mile.

With William Buick having no option but to take his medicine bottled up on the inside, the cutaway came perfectly for the colt to sprint for home in the straight, as the son of Dubawi showed the electric turn of foot that saw him a Classic winner on home soil.

It was not only Appleby’s 12th success at the Breeders’ Cup, but both the Moulton Paddocks handler and his number one Buick were winning this particular event for a record fourth time after dominating the Grade One contest in recent years.

Appleby said: “It’s a race we enjoy winning and will always try to find a horse for it. We bring the right horse, prep it and hope it will run to its full ability.

“Last year he was the highest profile horse we had ever brought here, but he’s tailor-made for this track.

“He’s had to learn and I think the experience around Woodbine has been the making of him coming into the race today and Will’s ride was copybook. If you could write a script on how to ride round there, that was it.

“We always knew we had the cutaway and even if he was a couple of lengths off them he has that electric turn of foot we have always seen.

“I was confident coming into the home straight and I thought the longer Will can be kept tight and sit on the rail the better, as soon the cutaway comes he will be away. You want to come late on him as he has a turn of foot and knows where the winning line is.”

Appleby confirmed Notable Speech will stay in training, adding: “I liked the Woodbine Mile for Notable Speech. Running on that turning track taught him something. Next year he will probably go the Lockinge and then we’ll go to the Queen Anne.”

Buick added: “He was full of confidence right from the first jump. He was a little bit aggressive with me and had his game face on. He was in a beautiful rhythm in a good spot and from the quarter pole nothing was going as well as him, he had that instant kick.

“I’ve been everything on this horse, a hero, a villain, but to be honest with you Charlie always fills you with great confidence and when your trainer gives you the confidence to do what is right by a horse in a race it helps.

“I had to wait, wait, wait and he broke better today than we hoped. We were fearful of him breaking the stalls as he did in the Woodbine Mile, but he broke better.

“We were two rows back, but were always going to ride the inside. When it comes off it looks great, but when it doesn’t you are a villain.

“He’s a very good horse, a 2000 Guineas winner, a Sussex Stakes winner and should have been a Prix Jacques le Marois winner in Deauville this year.”

It was Michael McCarthy’s Formidable Man who chased Notable Speech home for second, with Aidan O’Brien’s The Lion In Winter in third.

But Frankie Dettori could only finish sixth aboard Japanese challenge Argine in what was his final ride in America.