Horse Racing: A Punter's Guide to the Trainers and Horses to Watch Out for at Royal Ascot

Faced with 30 highly competitive races over five days at Royal Ascot next week punters need to adopt a selective approach to stand any chance of making a profit. While it rarely pays to follow one stable blindly, homing in on certain trainers in certain races has much to recommend it.

The most successful trainer in recent years is Sir Michael Stoute, who has saddled at least one winner every year since 1996. Unless the wheels come off completely, he will be adding to his Royal Ascot tally of 55 winners, the majority of which have come in Group races.

Stoute has not lost his touch in handicaps, though, so watch whatever he runs in the Duke of Edinburgh Stakes on Saturday week. From just eight runners in the past 10 years, Stoute has sent out three winners and a second. Perhaps this has been Greek Well's target.

Mark Johnston, with a winner every year since 1999, is giving Stoute a run for his money. Of Johnston's 26 Royal Ascot winners, 18 have come in middle distance/stayers' races. Johnston has won the Queen's Vase on four occasions, most recently with Soapy Danger last year, and Hearthstead Maison could be just the type for the two-mile contest this time.

Johnston has also won the one-mile Britannia Handicap, but that was 10 years ago. The trainer to watch in Thursday's feature is definitely John Gosden. Of the stable's 20 Royal Ascot winners, eight have come in handicap races and four of those in the Britannia.

Two of the Gosden winners, North Song and El Gran Papa, were making their handicap debuts on the big day, and the trainer is taking that route with the unexposed Transcend, who won a maiden event at Newmarket on his last start.

With fewer winners, but an enviable strike-rate, Gosden's Newmarket colleague James Fanshawe is also to be respected in Royal Ascot handicaps. Four of Fanshawe's six winners at the meeting over the years have been in the Britannia, Royal Hunt Cup (twice) and Buckingham Palace Handicap.

Fanshawe has no Hunt Cup candidate this year, but Artimino comes into the Britannia Handicap reckoning and Zidane is a strong contender for the Wokingham, which the trainer went close to winning last year with Firenze.

Cesare, Fanshawe's 2006 Hunt Cup winner, has been supplemented for Tuesday's Queen Anne Stakes. But this is very much the heavyweight bout of the meeting, with Godolphin - six wins here since 1996 - sending out Ramonti to take on Ballydoyle's George Washington. Stoute, responsible for three Queen Anne winners since 2000, weighs in with Jeremy.

Proclamation missed the target for the Godolphin stable last year, but their superb record since 1996 suggests Ramonti may well be their best chance next week.

Ad Valorem won the Queen Anne Stakes 12 months ago for George Washington's trainer, Aidan O'Brien. But overall, better races for the latter has been the St James's Palace Stakes (three winners) and the Coventry Stakes, which O'Brien has won no less than four times.

The specialist in two-year-old races, though, is certainly Peter Chapple-Hyam. This year's Derby-winning trainer has five Royal Ascot wins to his name, all in juvenile contests, which makes the stable's Winker Watson and Polar Circle two for the short-list next week. They may be joined by Declaration Of War

Irish trainer John Oxx, with six winners from just 14 Royal Ascot runners in the past eight years, is another trainer to note. Provided Arch Swing has recovered from the muscle problem which affected her in the Irish 1,000 Guineas, she will bid to enhance the stable's fine strike-rate in the Coronation Stakes.

Henry Cecil may have gone off the Royal Ascot radar, having drawn a blank since Burning Sun's victory in 2002, but he is still far and away the most successful trainer at the meeting with 70 winners. With a Warren Place revival under way, Tranquil Tiger (Hampton Court) and Sound Of Nature, who has a choice of two engagements, should make Cecil competitive at the meeting again.