Notable Speech handed York target after July Cup eclipse

South Wales Guardian

12-07-2025

Last season's 2000 Guineas winner has got his head in front only once since that Classic success and has seemed to be faltering towards the end of his one-mile assignments this season.
He was therefore scaled back to six furlongs to see if that would trigger a return to form and though the distance posed an unknown, he was still well fancied as the 85-40 favourite under William Buick.
The Group One contest was not to be the scene of his comeback, however, and he ultimately finished fifth to leave his trainer pondering a stab at seven furlongs next.
He said: 'Will genuinely sounded disappointed, he said he'd thought he'd done everything right and then at the business end he just didn't finish.
'We've been seeing the same thing at a mile so maybe we've got a look a bit harder at him, I don't know.
'It was always going to be hard to jump to make an assessment after his first time sprinting at this level.
'I see no reason not to meet halfway at seven (furlongs) and go to York, which was always our plan.
'If the horse comes out of it well, and I see no reason why he won't, we'll head to the City of York Stakes.'
Of stablemate Symbol Of Honour, who was eighth under Oisin Murphy, he added: 'Symbol Of Honour really doesn't like the Rowley Mile, we're nowhere near the Rowley Mile but he still wasn't handling the track.
'Oisin still said to me that he's a Group One sprinter in the making so he'll carry on sprinting, he'll go to Haydock or somewhere like that. A slick track will suit him perfectly.'
Connections of the Mick Appleby-trained runner-up Big Mojo were thrilled with their colt's effort and are planning a step back to five furlongs for the remainder of the campaign.
'I'm absolutely delighted with him. We've tried him over six this year, we've been brave,' said owner Paul Teasdale.
'Today was always going to be a tough ask but he did fantastically well. I'm really proud of him, I thought he'd just about got it but not quite, I'm still delighted.
'The King George, the Nunthorpe, the Flying Five – we're in all of them so we've got some options.
'He travels so well, he can withstand the pace and he's got a great finish in him.
'He won the Molecomb last year, he'd be delighted to go back to Goodwood.
'He's really maturing into a top-class horse.'
Aidan O'Brien's Whistlejacket, who was well supported in the lead up to the race, finished 12th at odds of 13-2 and may be due an easy few weeks after he was out of luck at Royal Ascot too.
The trainer said: 'It was a good, strong pace and he got back a little bit. We'll see where we'll go, we might give him a little break and freshen him up for the autumn.
'It didn't work the last day and it didn't work today, so that's what we might do. A little break and we might have him back for Haydock or something like that.'