Gentlemen may have been allowed to take their jackets off and “well-tailored” shorts were seen in all areas except the Richmond enclosure as temperatures soared at Goodwood but the coolest customer on the Downs on Wednesday was William Buick who delivered Notable Speech with perfect timing to win the £1 million Qatar Sussex Stakes.
If clinching a Classic is the pinnacle of this sport it is imperative that the winning horses are close to being the best of their generation, so the return to his best of the 2,000 Guineas winner after flopping in the St James’s Palace and becoming the first three-year-old to win both races since Frankel in 2011 was something to be celebrated.
A cut-away on the inside rail just over a furlong out is a relatively recent innovation here and, apart from reducing the stewards from being over-timers to part-timers, it means that horses that are potentially stuck in a pocket, who previously had to go over, through or round their rivals, can now with a good turn of foot switch right and zoom up the rail.
Until that point, Buick sat in third behind the favourite Henry Longfellow and Sonny Liston, who had cut each other’s throats over the first two furlongs. Majloom ran on to finish a length and a half second with Facteur Cheval third.
“When you have an unbeaten Classic winner going into a St James’s Palace and you’re beaten, of course you walk away disappointed,” said Charlie Appleby. “But I was happier to be beaten the way we were than to finish second or third and say we weren’t good enough. He just didn’t turn up, simple as that.
“Coming into today, his preparation was faultless. He looked great, and pre-race we shaved a couple of kilos back off him again. Was that winning or losing? I don’t think so, to be honest. I think he is just a horse who turned up with his A-game again.
“What I love about him is that he hasn’t got great stride length, but he turns those legs over quick, and that’s why you see that acceleration. It’s normally a sign that they can quicken up.”
Buick was also lavish in his praise of the colt. “I rode in Kingman’s Sussex when he won (in 2014),” he said. “I watched him accelerate from behind. You could visually see his acceleration. That was amazing to watch. I might be biased, but he has done something similar. It was instant. In that level of race, it’s a rarity.”
