Appleby pins hopes on Big Mojo landing Sprint prize

There is more than a touch of the Jamie Vardys about Mick Appleby.

- Greg Wood

Both were born in Yorkshire, both have a prolific strike-rate in their chosen professions, and in the same way that no profile of the Leicester forward was once complete without a nod to his non-league roots, Appleby is still familiar to many racing fans from his breakout seasons as the "king of the sand".

By Sunday morning, however, he may have earned a new title: the king of the Grade One sprinters. Big Evs, who was Appleby's first runner and first winner at the Breeders' Cup when he took the Juvenile Turf Sprint at Santa Anita 12 months ago, is back for a crack at the Turf Sprint at Del Mar tomorrow night. And, quite remarkably, Appleby has found another lightning-fast juvenile, Big Mojo, to attempt a repeat win in the Juvenile Turf Sprint today.

Both Big Evs and Big Mojo race in the colours of Paul and Rachael Teasdale, who paid a relatively modest 50,000gns (£52,500) for Big Evs before reinvesting 175,000gns (£183,750) of his £620,000 earnings in 2023 in Big Mojo.

Many thousands of two-year-olds are bred each year. As the hammer fell, the odds that Big Mojo would follow in Big Ev's hoofprints at the Breeders' Cup 12 months later were immense. However Appleby and his new owners saw something in Big Mojo they were determined to have.