Sir Michael Stoute has won the last two runnings of the King George, but is without a Group One success this season. Photograph: Rex Features"It's difficult not to spot it," Sir Michael Stoute says when reminded that, by his normal standards, eighth place in the trainers' championship is at least five or six places too low. "Or to be told about it." He laughs, but for a little longer than necessary. Whatever else he thinks about his current position in the league table, Stoute clearly does not find it particularly funny.
It would be surprising if he did. Stoute will be 65 in October and has been training for nearly 40 years, with 10 championships at regular intervals between 1981 and 2009, but the instinct to compete that took him to the top of the sport is as sharp as it was when he took out a licence in 1972. He drew a blank at Royal Ascot, for the first time in 16 years, but nearly a third of his winners in 2011 have arrived this month, and it is time to start gathering in the Group Ones, too.
Workforce, the likely favourite for the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot on Saturday afternoon, could restore Stoute's season to a more conventional pattern in the space of two and a half minutes. This is the 17th Group One of the season in Britain, and the 19th leg of the Qipco British Champion Series, and both sequences have yet to see a Stoute-trained winner. With a first prize of just over ?600,000, though, victory for last year's Derby and Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe winner would spring Stoute's yard into third place in the table, overtaking the latest knight in Newmarket, Sir Henry Cecil, in the process.
Stoute has won this race for the last two seasons, and five times in all going back to Shergar in 1981, who was his only three-year-old winner. Golan's victory on his seasonal debut in 2002 was one of the finest training performances of his career, and victory for Workforce would demonstrate once again that Stoute has few peers when it comes to coaxing enthusiasm and improvement from four- and five?year?olds.
"I think that the more they mature, the better you get to know them, so as a consequence they are easier to train," Stoute says. "Horses like Opera House, Saddlers' Hall, Pilsudski and Singspiel were all good horses from a young age who continued to progress. They were tough, honest competitors and had a lot of ability.
"We're lucky in that we get some very nice, quality horses, but there are not too many that even get to a Classic trial, never mind a Classic. Some of them are just not going to be mature enough to go that route, and often, when they start full work in the springtime, you've got to make a judgment call and determine whether that's where you should be aiming.
"Workforce was a better three-year-old than those, but he's not got too many miles on the clock. He's a big horse, 16 2, very clean-limbed and sound. He's a heavy horse too, so he doesn't want the ground too quick as a result. We wouldn't risk him on fast ground, and I'm hoping that it's not going to dry out too much at Ascot."
Even with his reputation as a trainer of older horses, Stoute must have been a little surprised when Prince Khalid Abdullah decided to keep Workforce in training this season. The prize money that Workforce might win is an irrelevance, but the prince, who is as interested in breeding as he is in racing, has foregone 100 or more Workforce foals next spring. To make the decision worthwhile, Workforce needs to enhance his reputation still further, and victory in a race in which he was only fifth – to his stablemate Harbinger – last year would certainly do that.
"There's accountability in any business, so it's great to have him at four," Stoute says of the calculations to be made in deciding when to send a horse to stud. "But they're horses, and so things aren't always straightforward and the slightest blip can mean that they miss what was going to be their main target.
"You've just got to take it race by race, and we'll see how he comes out of it on Saturday before making any more plans, though we want to have another stab at the Arc. It will all unravel as the season goes on, Saturday is the big day."
Ryan Moore rode St Nicholas Abbey, one of Workforce's main rivals, when he won the Coronation Cup at Epsom last month, but Stoute has first call on his services and Moore's experience could prove vital in a small field.
"It hasn't been a big field for the King George for the last few years, but it's a good-quality race and Ryan's very good on the big days," Stoute says. "He's very good on the little days as well, but he's very cool in these races and a lot of the decisions [about how to ride the race] are left to him."
Moore has seemed less than committed to a serious run at the jockeys' title, but he remains a serious contender and his boss could be on the trail of an 11th championship if Workforce wins on Saturday, with only Aidan O'Brien and Richard Hannon then in front of him. "You don't always have the same quality of horses every year and that's where we are," Stoute says, "but there's still a little way to go and we're going to see what we can do."
Michael Phelps won a record eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics, but has had a dismal time over the last 18 months. Photograph: John Pryke/EPA