John Moore was welcomed to England by some typically gloomy weather, but his mood brightened significantly once he laid eyes on his Royal Ascot raider Able Friend at Newmarket on Saturday.

Moore had not seen the horse since he left Sha Tin a week earlier and he declared the giant gelding was in perfect shape ahead of Tuesday's Queen Anne Stakes.

"I'm delighted with what I am looking at, he's done particularly well since coming into the country. I can just see that he is really loving the environment," Moore said at trainer Michael Bell's yard, where the horse has been stabled since his arrival.

Amid a steady drizzle that descended over Newmarket on Friday evening and continued early on Saturday, Able Friend cantered two miles in the wet with Moore watching on.

The trainer said his five-year-old was "very free in his action" and looking fit enough to contest a race where his stamina would come under scrutiny.

Having only raced on relatively tight-turning and flat right-handed courses in his 18-start career, Able Friend now faces a straight mile with an uphill rise and various undulations.

"It's a mile, but it equates to at least 1,800m in Hong Kong terms because of those factors," Moore said. "You need a horse that gets 2,000m really, but I think he does and we have him fit enough.

"The straight isn't of concern, he has trialled many times over 1,000m at Sha Tin, so he is used to going in a straight line. Of course, there is also some concern with respect to undulations, but I feel he is very adaptable."

Moore said that he had deliberately left some condition on Able Friend in Hong Kong to take into account the weight loss usually associated with long flights.

"We knew after his trial there was a little while to go to get him to the fitness level he was before he won in the Champions Mile," he said.

"We left a little condition on him prior to leaving just in case he lost weight - but as it turns out he has lost very little weight. But the great thing here is that we've been able to get a lot of good, solid cantering into him.

"For that reason, we have a horse that will be going around at 1,260 to 1,270 pounds, and I'm sure when Joao [Moreira] gets on him and canters down to the starting stalls he is going to get a very good feel.

"To me he looks a very, very fit horse and was very clean winded when he came off the track. I just mixed his feed myself [Saturday] morning and the minute he got to it, he hoed into it.

"It was a good sign from a horse that just finished his work. Lucky he isn't a carnivore because he would be a menace, you'd have to be careful around him because he would bite your arm off, he can eat."