Jamie Osborne excited by Toast Of New York in Breeders' Cup Classic

Trainer Jamie Osborne is growing increasingly confident a switch to dirt will not inconvenience Toast Of New York after the Breeders' Cup Classic contender enjoyed a workout at Southwell on Wednesday morning.

The American-bred three-year-old was a stunning winner of the UAE Derby on Tapeta at Meydan earlier in the year and has also won twice on the old Polytrack surface at Wolverhampton.

Osborne's stable star was last seen finishing an excellent second on a synthetic surface at Del Mar at the end of August and is now being prepared to tackle the Breeders' Cup feature on dirt at Santa Anita next month.

With Southwell's Fibresand circuit the closest thing to dirt he could encounter in Britain, Osborne was keen to let his charge stretch his legs at the Newark venue ahead of his Stateside mission and was encouraged by what he saw.

The Upper Lambourn handler said: "Everything went fine. He worked over seven furlongs, got a bit of sand in his face and then pulled out at the two-furlong pole.

"Jimmy McCarthy rode him and knows him better than anybody. He said he didn't seem to care or even notice the kickback, so hopefully that's a good sign.

"He's a tough-man of a horse now and when he gets set in motion, he'd run through a brick wall for you.

"While you can never really know until you try it, I really don't think the surface will be a problem for him at Santa Anita.

"He's only had three runs so far this year, but we've taken him away three weeks before each time and it has served us pretty well, so we were always going to take him away somewhere again before he goes to California.

"Given the task that he's got in front of him, it made sense to bring him to Southwell and we were very happy with how everything went.

"He's got another couple of bits to do, but he's pretty ready to go, really. He's a fit horse."