Toast Of New York return excites Osborne

JAMIE OSBORNE is excited to see just how much ability Toast Of New York retains when he makes his first competitive appearance in over three years at Lingfield this afternoon.

The six-year-old, partnered by Frankie Dettori today, has been on quite a journey during his relatively-short racing career to date, progressing from successive wins at Wolverhampton to winning the 2014 UAE Derby at Meydan and finishing a close second to Bayern in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita that November.

He was subsequently snapped up by Al Shaqab Racing ahead of an intended bid for Dubai World Cup glory, but a tendon injury forced his premature retirement.

However, following a largely unsuccessful spell at stud, there were murmurings earlier this year that a remarkable racecourse return was under consideration and after several painstaking months, the big day has arrived as he faces four rivals in Lingfield’s Betway Conditions Stakes.

“We kept it quiet for a long time as when we started the process we really didn’t know how far we’d get,” said Osborne.

“We’ve taken things very slowly but he’s had no soundness issues whatsoever and now it’s time to find out where we stand.

“We won’t know all the answers until he runs, obviously, but the signs he’s been showing us in the last month have been very good.”

Despite Toast Of New York’s 1130-day absence, Osborne feels he is more than ready to recommence his racing career following a couple of recent racecourse gallops.

“We took him to Kempton to work with Battalion about a month ago and that went well. We then took him to Lingfield to work with a 98-rated miler called Qassem who we got from Hugo Palmer and that went very well,” the trainer added.