3 minute read
Frankie Dettori will get the leg up on Toast Of New York for the first time in the next couple of weeks as Jamie Osborne begins to step up his stable star's preparations for the Dubai World Cup at the end of March.
The four-year-old was a stunning winner of the UAE Derby at Meydan last year and having come within a whisker of claiming victory in the Breeders' Cup Classic at Santa Anita last November, he will return to Dubai as a major contender for the world's richest race.
It was revealed in January that Sheikh Joaan Al Thani's Al Shaqab Racing empire had stepped in to buy the hugely valuable colt, meaning the owner's retained rider Dettori will take over in the saddle from Jamie Spencer.
The popular Italian will likely partner Toast Of New York for the first time in a racecourse gallop at Kempton early next month.
Osborne said: "He went to Kempton on Tuesday and worked well and he'll probably go back the week after next, but we'll talk to Frankie and see what fits in with him.
"We're very happy with the horse at home. We put him through a fairly high intensity regime when he's building up for a race and he's in the middle of that at the moment.
"He's cantering every day, he'll have a couple more gallops at home and we'll keep moving forward with him.
"He is a big horse now. He's put on a lot of muscle in the right places over the winter."
While his fellow Lambourn-based trainers Nicky Henderson and Oliver Sherwood are dusting down their big guns for the Cheltenham Festival, the Prestbury Park jamboree could not be further from the mind of former National Hunt jockey Osborne.
He said: "I've got a job to do and that's what we're concentrating on. Everything else just pales into insignificance, to be honest. When is Cheltenham?!"
