Notable Speech rebounds with City of York victory
The City of York Stakes on Saturday at York Racecourse is not part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series – but the favorite for the Breeders’ Cup Mile won it.
Notable Speech came back this season for a 5-year-old campaign in great part to try and win the Breeders’ Cup Mile for the second year in a row, and the way he won the Group 1 City of York, he stands a great chance of doing so.
Rebounding from a flat sixth June 16 in the Queen Anne at Ascot – a course trainer Charlie Appleby believes Notable Speech dislikes – Notable Speech crushed 13 foes in the City of York, winning the seven-furlong contest by 2 3/4 lengths.
No one in this race came close to his class, and with star 3-year-old Bow Echo retired, that could happen again in the BC Mile at Keeneland, which will be Notable Speech’s next – and, presumably, last – start, Appleby told overseas media.
Ridden forwardly and fairly aggressively by William Buick, Notable Speech jumped on the pacesetters a quarter mile from the finish, took the lead and was steered right to get from the middle of the course over to the stands’ side rail, and quickly opened daylight in a dominant performance.
Lake Forest finished a distant second, just ahead of third-place Marvelman. Notable Speech paid $6.40 on the American tote, a relatively high price that reflected some measure of doubt that the horse was the same this year as last.
A Godolphin homebred, Notable Speech is by Dubawi out of Swift Rose, by Invincible Spirit. He won for the ninth time in 18 starts while landing his sixth Group 1.
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