Horse Profile: Notable Speech

Breeders' Cup Mile Scouting Report

(Editor's note: Originally published in the 2024 BRISnet Breeders' Cup International Report) 

Godolphin trainer Charlie Appleby bids for an unprecedented fourth straight Mile trophy, relying this time on Notable Speech. As a classic-winning sophomore, Notable Speech vaguely calls to mind Appleby’s 2022 Mile hero Modern Games, rather than his older Mile victors Space Blues (2021) and Master of the Seas (2023). 

Amazingly, all four are homebreds by top sire Dubawi. Notable Speech is out of the Group 3-placed Invincible Spirit mare Swift Rose, herself a half-sister to 2021 Natalma (G1) romper Wild Beauty. They descend from multiple Group 1-winning sprinter Cherokee Rose, who was eighth when attempting the 1995 Mile. 

Notable Speech has had a very different career trajectory from Modern Games. Unlike Modern Games, who had an extensive two-year-old campaign culminating in his Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf coup, Notable Speech wasn’t ready to run until almost the end of January. As a result, he had to start out on the British all-weather.

Odds-on in his unveiling around a right-handed mile at Kempton, Notable Speech exploded from near the rear to win handsomely. Despite appearing unextended, he ripped his final three furlongs in :33.77.

Notable Speech was similarly electric in his ensuing starts over the same track and trip. When going last to first in the “Road to the Kentucky Derby” Conditions race, the favorite had to wait in traffic before knifing through, yet still fired a final quarter in :22.70. That made him an even hotter favorite in an April 6 conditions race, where he again burst from last with a final quarter in :21.79.

Although his Kempton heroics were impressive, Notable Speech faced a test of an entirely different magnitude in the first British classic of the season, the 2000 Guineas (G1). Aside from stepping up dramatically in class versus last year’s champion juvenile City of Troy (Classic) and other top-caliber rivals, Notable Speech was also racing on turf for the first time. Moreover, no horse since 1938 had won the Guineas after going unraced at two. 

Accordingly dispatched as a 16-1 dark horse, Notable Speech not only passed the class and surface tests with flying colors. He also demonstrated that he could travel as smartly, and close as effectively, off a fast pace as he did in the modestly-run races at Kempton. Smoothly ranging up from the back of the pack on the far side, Notable Speech soon quickened clear of the tiring City of Troy, and he outkicked well-regarded runner-up Rosallion. The form was promptly upheld when Rosallion and the third-placer from Newmarket, Haatem, came back to run one-two in the Irish 2000 Guineas (G1).

Notable Speech’s unbeaten sequence came to an end in the St James’s Palace (G1) at Royal Ascot, where Rosallion gained revenge. But Notable Speech was clearly below his best in seventh, in one of those inscrutable clunkers that Appleby himself couldn’t decipher. 

Back to his brilliant best in the “Win and You’re In” Sussex (G1) at Glorious Goodwood, Notable Speech was nestled in third on the rail, and as soon as he found room thanks to the cutaway, he stormed clear. His time for the mile was a sprightly 1:35.97, including a final sectional in :22.78. While the Sussex didn’t provide a rubber match with Rosallion, who was sidelined, Notable Speech did defeat a pair of notable elders in Maljoom and Facteur Cheval. They furnish collateral form with the leading older miler, Charyn.

Unfortunately, Notable Speech’s own match-up with Charyn ended up being a frustrating loss for them both in the Sept. 8 Prix du Moulin (G1). Godolphin colleague Tribalist reveled in his ideal conditions to spring a front-running upset at ParisLongchamp. Charyn closed stoutly for second, but Notable Speech was spinning his wheels in fifth over the soft going.

Appleby expects to see the real Notable Speech on quicker ground at Del Mar, where he believes that the Mile is “tailor-made for him.” Regular rider William Buick has raved about the colt’s pure ability, even admitting that early on he was almost doubting himself about what he felt. But Notable Speech validated his intuition in the Guineas and again at Goodwood. 

Perhaps the biggest question is posed by the historical stat that no horse has won Newmarket’s 2000 Guineas and the Mile. Rock of Gibraltar was bitterly unlucky in the 2002 Mile, however, and Master of the Seas had missed by a pixel in the 2021 Guineas. Only a few others have tried to go for the double in the Mile – Shadeed (third in 1985), Mark of Esteem (seventh in 1996), Refuse to Bend (11th in 2003), and Kameko (seventh in 2020).