Dubai Duty Free Mill Reef Stakes (G2)
“Words of Truth completes his hat-trick”
The conditions clearly played an important part in Saturdays Mill Reef Stakes at Newbury. A winning time of 1:14.41s was 0.52s slower than the 2024 winner (Powerful Glory) who won a race run on ground officially described as Heavy. The strung out nature of the field adds to that sense, with 8-lengths covering the first 4 horses to cross the line. The time was 1.31s outside of the TPD expected time for the course under the official conditions and given that the winner recorded a finishing speed of 97.08%, with each of the first 3 runners to cross the line running a final furlong over 13s, this race became a test of stamina and the field can be easily split between those who handled it and those who did not.
Let’s start with the runner-up, Into the Sky. Having been an impressive seven and a half length winner on his debut over the extended 6-furlongs here in late August, Jim Boyle’s Colt has taken a significant rise in class in his stride and confirmed the positive impression that he created on debut. Having travelled strongly and recorded the longest average stride length in the field at 24.70 ft, Into the Sky looked to be the most likely winner as he surged clear at the 2-furlong pole. At that point the race looked to be his, but having hung to his left across the track, his stride shortened significantly in the final furlong, dropping from an average of 7.3m in the 5th furlong to 6.8m in the last. He is very inexperienced and it’s important to remember that he made his debut just 23 days earlier and it is highly likely that he did too much in the early stages, especially in these conditions. The comparison between Into the Sky and Words of Truth in the final furlong is stark, with the eventual winner decreasing his average stride length by just 0.07m between the final 2-furlongs as he stayed on to win by 0.16s. Into the Sky is perhaps the more likely to improve. On both starts to date he has recorded the longest average stride length in the field and taken less than 6s to reach 30 mph when the stalls open. A long striding son of Starman, who has had a truly remarkable first crop in 2025, Into the Sky should be capable of taking another step forward, but the data would suggest that it is not as simple as assuming that the winner was handed the race in the latter stages.
Words of Truth completed a hat-trick of wins when landing the Dubai Duty Free Mill Reef Stakes and each of those 3 successes has included a run-out speed that ranked in the first 2 and a final furlong split time that did the same, so we can say with some authority that he is a strong stayer at this distance. Having leaned to his right when leaving the stalls, Words of Truth has certainly been helped by having the runner-up along side him to tow him into the latter stages of the contest, but William Buick has had to switch his mount twice in the final 3 furlongs of the contest as Into the Sky has come initially to the stands rail before drifting back into the centre of the course. Into the Sky has drifted far enough to avoid being a target for William Buick to aim at specifically, but the only time in the race that Words of Truth records the fastest individual furlong in the field is in the 6th and final furlong and his run-out speed of 31 mph, although a race best, is only 0.31 mph quicker than the 2nd. Words of Truth is the uncomplicated performer who recorded far less variance for both his average stride length and strdie frequency data. As he showed at Ascot and Newmarket, he is a consistent performer and the horse to frame this form around. The front pair had pulled 4-lengths clear of the 90-rated Flying Comet at the line, a horse who came into this race with plenty of experience and some solid form from the Arqana race at Deauville in August and for that, they should both be commended. All of that is true and Words of Truth was clearly the best horse on the day, but if there is a horse to be excited about from this Mill Reef field, it has to be the runner-up, who has perhaps been beaten by his lack of experience more than anything else.