Notable Speech on course for Breeders’ Cup Mile challenge

Charlie Appleby is confident Notable Speech has all the attributes to thrive at Del Mar when the 2000 Guineas hero will attempt to become the trainer’s fourth straight winner of the Breeders’ Cup Mile.

The Moulton Paddocks handler has farmed the race in recent years, with Space Blues, Modern Games and Master Of The Seas all striking in the Stateside showpiece for the Godolphin trainer.

However, it is easy to argue that his Classic-winning son of Dubawi will be the best he has saddled in the event, with the colt a best priced 7-2 to make it four in a row in California.

He has already shown he is capable of bouncing back from a disappointing display once this term, when leaving his St James’s Palace defeat behind him to claim the Sussex Stakes, and will have to do so again having suffered a second loss in the Prix du Moulin at ParisLongchamp last month.

Testing ground in the French capital stunted his trademark turn of foot on that occasion, in a race dominated from the front by Andre Fabre’s Tribalist.

However, Appleby is taking the positives from his trip to the French capital and following an easy time in the aftermath of that reversal, is getting ready to turn up the intensity ahead of Notable Speech’s American adventure.

“America is still the aim and he’s in good order,” said Appleby.

“We’re just going through the motions at the minute but we’ll start to wind him up over the coming weeks.

“Until you have actually been on one of those trips, you don’t really know, but we were pleased at Longchamp by the way he conducted himself on the travelling side of it.

“We had to try the ground to know whether we were going to go to Ascot (for the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes) or not, but the one box he did tick is he travelled well.

“Going to America, you would say he is tailor-made for the mile – he will be going a couple of turns and he travels well. All we do need on the day is a good draw.”

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