Quinault

The headline number, though, is the Class 1 record. These are the top races in British racing — the ones that matter most, contested by the best horses — and Quinault has won four of them. That includes back-to-back wins at York in September 2024 and June 2025, plus a victory at Newmarket's prestigious July course and another at Chester. Winning at this level once is an achievement. Winning four times, across four different tracks, tells you this horse genuinely belongs in top company rather than just passing through it.

York in particular is where Quinault seems to save its best. Three wins from five races there — that's a 60% win rate at one of the most beautiful and competitive tracks in the country. Courses suit horses for all sorts of reasons: the shape of the track, the way the ground drains, the style of racing that tends to develop. Whatever it is about York, Quinault finds it agreeable. The most recent win there came on 28 June 2025, just over a year ago, and the horse raced again only yesterday, which means it is right in the thick of an active campaign.

Add in a preference for slightly soft ground — two wins from three races in those conditions, a remarkable 67% — and you start to build a picture of a horse that rewards anyone paying attention. Know the conditions, know the track, and Quinault becomes a serious proposition. The trainer Stuart Williams, based in Newmarket, has been in excellent form this season with 67 winners sent out, and jockey Marco Ghiani has partnered Quinault to four of those 11 victories from 12 rides together, winning roughly one in every three times they've lined up as a pair.

The recent form — no win in the last six races, with a couple of near-misses — means the big moment hasn't quite come yet on this current run. But with the record this horse carries, and York still fresh in the memory, it would be unwise to write Quinault off.