In the wake of every champion on Saturday at Meydan Racecourse will lie a multitude of broken dreams.
The losers in the Dubai World Cup itself will feel defeat most painfully with a purse of US$10 million (Dh36.7m) to run for, but connections of UAE Derby runner Toast Of New York may well take being beaten harder than most.
Toast Of New York has raced only four times in his brief career, but having won his past two races at Wolverhampton in England by 12 and 16 lengths respectively, trainer Jamie Osborne could scarcely contain his confidence at Meydan yesterday.
Osborne was the first to acknowledge that Toast Of New York beat very little in his last two runs, but was in an upbeat mood following a conversation with owner Michael Buckley.
“The reason we ran him at Wolverhampton was to show the world that he was a better than what his rating suggested, so as to have any chance at all of getting into the race,” Osborne said.
“His rating of 78 at the time meant he was going to get laughed at and wouldn’t even get him on the reserve list.
“He is owned by the right man, who likes adventure, and when I mentioned the UAE Derby last year for the first time he simply said: ‘let’s do it!’”
“He has just landed, and he is so totally overexcited already that he’s called me from the plane.”
Osborne has endured a lean spell at the top level since Milk It Mick won the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes in 2003.
He has had only one winner in Dubai where Rakaan, one of 14 horses to have run here for him, won a handicap in 2011.
He could, therefore, be forgiven for tilting at windmills, especially when the winners’ cheque of $1.2m is comfortably more than his stable has earned in prize-money for the past four seasons. It is not how the former National Hunt jockey sees it, however.
Osborne has planned meticulously the training programme for the unheralded three-year-old colt, which included a couple of days out on the artificial surface at Kempton Park under Saturday’s rider Jamie Spencer ahead of his Tapeta test.
“We went around the wrong way of Kempton to try to mimic a race at Meydan,” Osborne added. “It is hard these days to find a horse good enough in our yard to keep up with him – it was as far back as last summer that he started to stand out from the rest.
“I’d hate to think we’re here just to make up the numbers. I haven’t had a horse this good in years.”
Toast Of New York faces a twin-pronged attack from the yard of Aidan O’Brien, the Irish trainer who fields Giovanni Boldini and the improving Sir John Hawkins, who it is understood has been working very well at Ballydoyle before leaving for Dubai on Monday.
O’Brien has won the UAE Derby for the past two seasons with Lines Of Battle and Daddy Long Legs. Godolphin, who have won the UAE Derby seven times, field four runners.
Saeed bin Suroor will run Paximadia and Emirates Flyer, while Charlie Appleby will rely on Long John and Safety Check.
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