Williams hopes to win the Royal Ascot for the successful Quinault

Quinault, the serial winner for Stuart Williams, is scheduled to compete at Royal Ascot to build on his strong performance from the previous season.

The four-year-old last year proved to be a revelation in sprint handicaps over six and later seven furlongs. After making one race for Godolphin and Charlie Appleby, he was sold to his current owners.

After being acquired by connections for 25,000 guineas, the bay won seven races in a row, including six consecutive victories, and amassed nearly £180,000 in earnings.

The handicapper has taken notice, as he made his comeback over seven furlongs at Newmarket this season, coming off a career-high mark of 102.

He discovered that the race did not proceed as planned under Luke Catton, and after a long period of settling in, he eventually tried to finish eighth after going around the incorrect side of the circuit.

“It was a bit messy we had planned to do the usual thing and be up there in the lead or the joint lead, but he just came out (of the stalls) a bit sideways and it took him half a furlong to get in front,” Williams said of the run. “Then he got a bit tired late on, he ended up racing in the middle of the track and that probably wasn’t ideal either. He’s come out of the race in great form and we hope to run him at Ascot.”

The gelding is entered in the Royal meeting's Wokingham Stakes, a handicap race, and the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes, a Group One race.

Several of his defeated competitors from the previous campaign, including Mill Stream, the winner of the Duke of York, and Washington Heights, the winner of the Abernant Stakes, have already entered Group company and performed admirably.

“The form from his races last year is very strong, he was getting a bit of weight, obviously, and he’s now gone up in the handicap,” Williams explained. “He’s a nice big horse and I hope he will have improved since last year, we’ve purposely given him a big break because he ran all through the winter last year and then all through the summer as well. He’s had a long break and with the difficult spring we were a little bit behind where we wanted to be, it was nice to get him on the track and there’ll be plenty of targets for him in the second half of the season.”