UAE Derby winner Toast Of New York will line up in the inaugural Belmont Invitational Derby at Belmont Park on Saturday a much improved horse.
Toast Of New York was among the dominant winners on Dubai World Cup night in March, setting up Amber Sky's record-breaking run in the Al Quoz Sprint and Just A Way's six-length demolition in the Dubai Duty Free.
Trainer Jamie Osborne, who is based in Lambourn near Newbury, subsequently resisted the urge to run Toast Of New York in the Kentucky Derby against California Chrome, and the lure of the English Derby came and went.
And having sparkled on the gallops before leaving England last week, Osborne is hopeful Toast Of New York can give a good account of himself on the international stage as he builds towards next year’s Dubai World Cup.
“His final work was unlike anything I have seen on the Lambourn gallops and I’ve been there a long time,” Osborne said. “What we saw there was something special.”
Trainers often lean toward hyperbole before big races, but Osborne has the times of the work and is adamant that Toast Of New York, who was not yet three years old when he won in Dubai, has progressed.
“Toast Of New York is a much-improved horse, and before he went to Meydan he wasn’t capable of doing that,” he said.
Toast Of New York was an unlikely winner on the international stage when he turned up in Dubai.
He had put two small fields to the sword at Wolverhampton, a lowly British track, last season, and though those performances were visually impressive and were backed up on the clock, winning a maiden is a far cry from a Derby in Dubai.
Toast Of New York’s rise to international prominence may have been effortless, but for Osborne, it has taken a little longer.
The 46 year old was one of his generation’s most-gifted National Hunt jockeys before he took up training 15 years ago at Kingsdown Stables in Lambourn.
There were great successes, notably the Group 1 win in the Dewhurst Stakes with Milk It Mick in 2003. As he sought to build on that promise with horses such as Geordieland, who ran with credit in the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot in 2007 and 2008, the global economic downturn struck.
Osborne’s owners were made up largely of property developers, Irish builders on the make and merchant bankers, and Martin Myers, his landlord, ran out of money.
Osborne now trains from the Old Malthouse, where he lives with Katie O’Sullivan, his equine artist wife and their four children.
With Meydan regular Field Of Dream providing his fifth Royal Ascot winner last month, Osborne’s lot is now a contented one.
“When I was riding, I was riding plenty of big winners and they were coming regularly,” he said. “When I started training, we had a couple of nice horses and we won a Group 1.
“I probably didn’t realise how lucky I was to have that horse.
“But having had four or five years when we haven’t had a nice horse, and spent much of our time at Wolverhampton and Lingfield, the importance of this is magnified.”
The Belmont Derby Invitational will become the New York track’s second-most-valuable race of the season after the Belmont Stakes at US$1.25 million (Dh4.6m).
The Belmont Turf course is about as close as you can get in America to a European-style track, and although Toast Of New York is unproven on grass, he holds an outstanding chance.
Against him will be Adelaide, who has been sent to America by Aidan O’Brien, the Irish trainer.
French raider Gailo Chop is another one to watch.
Osborne is writing a daily blog for the Racing Post, and earlier this week, he highlighted how Dubai Millennium’s World Cup win was one of the best pieces of planning seen in racing.
There were no such plans to run in the Big Apple when owner Michael Buckley filled in the naming form for Toast Of New York, christened after the 1937 film featuring Cary Grant, last year.
After resisting several offers before the UAE Derby, however, including one reportedly worth seven figures, Buckley is just enjoying the ride.
“I’ve tended to approach life generally with a pretty optimistic frame of mind,” he said.
“The time when it gets intimidating for me is in the winners’ enclosure and you see the Ballydoyle team. I think I’m paddling in a deep ocean here and I’ll get washed up unconscious on a beach somewhere.”
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