Stuart Williams is dreaming big with "outside chance" Quinault in the Sky Bet City Of York Stakes at next week's Ebor Festival.
The newly inaugurated Group 1 contest provides Williams with an opportunity to break his duck at the top level with course specialist Quinault.
Quinault has saved his best performances in a 26 race career for York and is unbeaten in three visits to the Knavesmire. He won a handicap in 2024 from useful sprinter Washington Heights and, last year, added a Listed race to his tally when keeping Purosangue at bay.
Those two contests were over six furlongs but Quinault is equally effective over the City Of York Stakes trip of seven furlongs as he proved when winning a Group 3 at the track in June, a race in which Lake Forest finished a beaten favourite in sixth.
Williams is wise to the task at hand but has the utmost faith in his stable star.
"It would be great, it would be a dream [to win]," the Newmarket handler told the Nick Luck Daily Podcast.
"We haven't managed to win a Group 1 race in my 30 years of training so it would be brilliant to win one with Quinault next week at York.
"He obviously likes the track and even the form of the handicap he won the year previous is really strong.
"He's a horse who wears his heart on his sleeve and he's very good from the front. If something wants to go quicker than the wants to go, I'm happy to sit second but usually not many horses want to go faster than him.
"I think he's got an outside chance but with Quinault you've always got a fighting chance because he tries so bloody hard.
"So, you know, if he got the fractions right on the front and there was a bit of a tailwind on the day, that sort of thing would help. It happens quite a lot at York, he's going to run a big race and whoever beats him will know they've been in a race."
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