Jamie Osborne is targeting a second UAE Derby victory with Heart Of Honor after he had to make do with the runner-up spot when bidding for a Dubai hat-trick last week.
It is 11 years since the Lambourn handler claimed UAE Derby glory with Toast Of New York, who famously went on to be beaten just a nose by Bayern in an epic Breeders’ Cup Classic later that year.
Heart Of Honor has some way to go to scale those heights, but following a promising introduction when second at Southwell in October, the three-year-old impressed at Meydan in December and January before finishing second to Golden Vekoma, who he had previously beaten, in Friday’s UAE 2000 Guineas.
Osborne feels there is more to come from the son of American Grade One winner Honor A. P., particularly when he steps up in trip.
He said: “We ran him a fortnight before the UAE Guineas to give him that experience and if we hadn’t done that, we would have been kicking ourselves because he was green and babyish early on the other day.
“He’s just not that quick into his stride and with 15 runners, we just ended up further back than ideal and then, of course, he had to negotiate getting past 14 horses in front of him.
“The winner, who is probably a more complete horse at the moment, jumped out and travelled great and was up there in the van the whole way. We have just left ourselves too much to do, but he’s run through the line really well and it looks fairly obvious that we’re going to improve for going a bit further.
“I think there is an element of him learning on the job as well, and I think he will get sharper, so it makes sense probably to go to the Al Bastakiya (February 21) and hopefully end up in the UAE Derby on World Cup night (April 5).
“He’s not the finished article yet by any stretch of the imagination. When you see him next to some of those other dirt horses in Dubai, he’s still quite raw looking, so we have every reason to hope that this horse will improve through the year and into next year.”