Breeders’ Cup: Notable Speech keeps Europe atop the Mile
Sent off as the 5-2 favorite, Great Britain-based Notable Speech hugged the rail through a narrow gap in the homestretch Saturday and surged to victory in the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Mile on the turf at Del Mar.
It was the fourth time in the last five years that Godolphin, trainer Charlie Appleby and jockey William Buick won the race, doing so with four different horses. Space Blues in 2021, Modern Games in 2022 and Master of The Seas in 2023 were the others.
As far back as seventh making the second turn, Buick had to find his way to the front with Notable Speech after 50-1 long shot Red Stripe set pacesetting fractions of 22.59 and 46.76 seconds. Rhetorical, the 7-2 second choice ridden by Irad Ortiz Jr., took the lead into the homestretch through three-quarters of a mile in 1:10.84.
It was shortly after that when Buick had to decide how to get Notable Speech past retreating Red Stripe. There was just enough room in the one path for him to stay there, and that was where the 4-year-old Dubawi colt displayed a decisive turn of foot in the final furlong to produce a 1 1/2-length triumph.
The winning time was 1:33.66 on the firm course.
"Last year, he was the highest-profile horse we ever brought here," Appleby said. "He is tailor-made for this track and I know he’s had to learn how to run it, but the experience around Woodbine was the making of it to come into a race like today. Then Will’s ride around there was copybook. If you could ever wrote a script on how to go around there, that was how. He got him out, got a nice pitch two or three back and we always knew we have the cutaway here — even if he was a couple lengths off of them at the cutaway, he’s got that electric turn of foot that we’ve seen throughout his career.
"I was confident. I know some people would have been praying for the cutaway, but I wasn’t, really, because I thought the longer that Will could sit tight and be kept tight on the rail, the better. As soon as that cutaway comes, he’s electric. If anything, you would want to come late on him, because no one has a turn-of-foot like him and he knows where the winning line is."
Formidable Man closed from mid-pack to place second. The Lion in Winter finished third, Rhetorical fourth and Sahlan fifth in the field of 13.
A Godolphin homebred, Notable Speech improved from a third-place loss in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Mile. His 2025 has included fourths in the Lockinge (G1) at Newbury and the Queen Anne (G1) at Royal Ascot, a fifth in the July Cup (G1) at Newmarket, a second in the Jacques Le Marois (G1) at Deauville and a Sept. 13 win in the Woodbine Mile (G1).
Before Saturday, favorites had been beaten six of the last eight years in the Mile.
So-named before the first running of the Dirt Mile in 2007, the Mile on the turf was one of the seven original Breeders’ Cup races established in 1984.