A Royal Ascot repeat will be on Desert Hero’s agenda when he returns to the track this summer, with William Haggas keen to head to the Hardwicke Stakes in peak condition.

The son of Sea The Stars entered the record books at last year’s Royal meeting when his last-gasp King George V Stakes success provided the King and Queen with their first Royal Ascot champion and prompted joyous scenes in the royal box.

He would go on to land the Gordon Stakes at Glorious Goodwood on his next start which teed-up a shot at the St Leger, where Desert Hero would finish an honourable third in the presence of his owners.

Initial talk of a Melbourne Cup bid was soon curtailed and with the Somerville Lodge handler electing against taking him to Australia this side of the new year, he is pleasing Haggas at home as he builds towards the start of his four-year-old campaign.

The earlier part of the season will have a Royal Ascot focus, with the Hardwicke Stakes currently nominated as Desert Hero’s target for the summer showpiece.

“He’s done really well and I’m really pleased with him,” said Haggas.

“We cut (gelded) him over the winter and took the view he was unlikely to make a stallion, or a stallion that would be popular for anyone, and that he still had plenty of mileage as a racehorse. I think he will be better for being gelded and hopefully he will have a good season.

“He will have a run or two, probably only a run, and it would be very much the Hardwicke. It would be lovely to go back to Ascot with a chance for him.”

For his Royal Ascot tune-up, Desert Hero could tread a similar path to 12 months ago by appearing on Lockinge Day at Newbury on May 18.

The four-year-old reappeared in the London Gold Cup on that card in 2023 and Haggas has tentatively suggested that the Al Rayyan Stakes, previously known as the Aston Park, could be the ideal spot to return to action.

“It will depend how quickly he comes to hand, but the obvious race is the Aston Park,” he continued.

“He ran in the London Gold Cup last year at Newbury and the Aston Park is on the same day, a valuable Group Three race.

“He will be penalty free for that and if you are asking me in March where he will go, then off the top of my head that is what I would say.

“It’s very possible he will start there. That to me looks the perfect place to start him with a nice gap until Royal Ascot.”

William Haggas has decided to keep the King and Queen’s Desert Hero closer to home for his first outing of 2024, with Royal Ascot once again on the agenda before a potential trip to Australia at the end of the year.

The chestnut sparked fabulous scenes last June, providing his owners with their first winner at the big meeting in the King George V Stakes.

He went on to win at Glorious Goodwood and finish third in the St Leger, after which Haggas was contemplating a Melbourne Cup tilt.

That was put on the backburner but the Newmarket handler was considering sending him out to Australia in the early months of the new year, given the success he has had with the likes of Addeybb and Dubai Honour Down Under.

However, those plans have now been shelved and Haggas told RadioTAB Australia: “We decided definitely that His Majesty’s horse will not be coming to Sydney in the autumn.

“We may well come down at the backend of the year in your (Australian) spring, but I just felt he needed a bit more time and they (his owners) concurred.

“Possibly (the Melbourne Cup) or possibly something in Sydney, we’ll see.

“We are going to concentrate on going to Royal Ascot for the Hardwicke Stakes, which will be his first major target.

“He’s done very well this winter. He will benefit from all the time he can get. It’s ‘do we press the button now or wait a bit’ and we plumped for the second option, we’re going to wait a bit.

“He’s pretty useful, he got better and better last year and we think he’s done better again this winter, so I am very pleased with him.”

Haggas will be represented in the big Australian races once again by Dubai Honour, who won both the Ranvet Stakes and the Queen Elizabeth Stakes last year before finishing a fine third to Romantic Warrior in the QEII Cup in Hong Kong.

“He’ll go into quarantine on February 15. We’re looking at the same two races as last year,” said Haggas.

“I probably shouldn’t have run him in the Eclipse, as he’d been on the go for a while, but there were only four runners and I thought he ran well for a long way in the Champion Stakes.

“To be honest, his whole summer was based around getting him in top shape to come to you (Australia) in February/March.

“He will be the same horse he was, I hope.

“I’d like him to come back for two years. If all goes well this year and he runs competitively, then basically it will be all the same again.”

Two more could travel with Dubai Honour, as Post Impressionist, winner of the Old Borough Cup, and Mujtaba, last seen finishing second in the Huxley Stakes in May, are both pencilled in.

“Post Impressionist will run in the Sydney Cup, he’s been bought by Lloyd Williams. He’s in really good shape,” said Haggas.

“Mujtaba might well go. I’m really pleased with his condition. He’ll either go Ranvet or Tancred and then hopefully Queen Elizabeth.

“He’s never won a Stakes race, in his only start last year he was second in a Group Two and then got colic.

“He’s a good age, he’s six but has only run nine times in his life.”

King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes winner Pyledriver is on course for the defence of his title and could use the Hardwicke Stakes as a stepping stone as he nears a return from injury.

William Muir and Chris Grassick’s stable star has not run since taking the all-aged midsummer Group One highlight last July.

He was being prepared for a tilt at the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe when he suffered setback and plans for a return to the Dubai Sheema Classic, in which he finished fourth in the spring of 2022, were similarly scotched when he met with an injury to his near foreleg.

Pyledriver, who runs in the colours of the La Pyle Partnership, also won the Coronation Cup in 2021 and finished second in that race to Hukum last year.

Muir is hopeful the six-year-old can return to Ascot for the Group Two Hardwicke on June 24.

“Pyledriver is just starting to come along now,” he said. “He did his first piece of work on Friday.

“We have brought him along nice and gently this time and he’s doing it really nicely. He is doing plenty of cantering.

“He did his first gallop on Friday and he swims every night, which is something a bit new, because we have not done that before, but we thought we would try to get him to the Hardwicke, which is just under three weeks away.

“He swims like a natural. It scares me, because I don’t like going swimming, but he doesn’t mind it.”

However, the Lambourn trainer is mindful the gelding’s primary targets are towards the end of the year and the option of missing his King George prep is still on the table.

“It is not a big issue if he doesn’t go there, but he’ll only go if I’m happy he’s 90-95 per cent straight fitness-wise,” Muir added.

“Those type of races are big races. The object was to go to the King George again, then prioritise getting to the Arc. Then you have all these international races at the back-end of the year.

“The Hardwicke, though it sounds stupid to say it, is a race to bring him on for the King George.

“The best races for him, and for the prize-money, are later on in the year, so the longer I wait now, he won’t be over the top when we get to the end of the year.

“You can over-do it by racing a lot, and when you get to internationals like Kong Kong and the Breeders’ Cup, you can go past your best.

“If in the next two weeks we can get him where we want him – which we can do, as when we were getting him ready for Lingfield I thought I was struggling to get to the Winter Derby, he had two gallops and then ‘bang’ he was there and he was bouncing – if he says to me ‘yes’, he’ll be there.

“And if he says ‘no’, he won’t be. We’ll see how he gets on, but there’s no big issue if he doesn’t go to the Hardwicke.”

Royal Ascot’s Hardwicke Stakes is still the aim for Brigadier Gerard Stakes winner Hukum, who handed Derby winner Desert Crown his first defeat at Sandown earlier this month.

Owen Burrows was happy to report the Shadwell-owned six-year-old returned to his Lambourn yard in fine fettle after his first run for 11 months.

Hukum had three screws inserted in a hind leg after suffering an injury when winning last year’s Coronation Cup at Epsom.

Having made a remarkable recovery, under a fine ride from Jim Crowley, he produced a telling burst to collar Desert Crown and take the Group Three 10-furlong prize by half a length.

“Hukum thankfully trotted up sound the next morning all good and had a little canter on Saturday. That was the most important bit,” said Burrows.

Victory over the trip opens a few more doors for the year-older brother to the brilliant Baaeed. Hukum had won over a mile and three-quarters in the past, although he has predominately raced over a mile and a half.

Burrows added: “He is trip versatile. We are just going to be in the lap of the gods to see what sort of summer we have this year.

“He doesn’t need it soft, but he does need it safe, good ground.

“Jim has always made that point and I’m in agreement. Talking to (Shadwell owner) Sheikha Hissa the following day, she was in agreement as well.

“I’ve not got him in the Prince of Wales’s or an Eclipse, but as you know well with the British summertime, if the forecast is a bit wet, we might just have to have a conversation.”

Should ground conditions be favourable, there is the fascinating prospect of a clash with stablemate Anmaat, who won Monday’s Prix d’Ispahan at ParisLongchamp.

“We have Anmaat in both the Prince Of Wales’s and the Eclipse, so it would be a nice problem to have,” he added.

“We will be watching the weather with Hukum and I always said the Brigadier Gerard would be a prep for the Hardwicke, but if the Hardwicke turned up good to firm, we might have to wait.

“There is the Eclipse at the beginning of July and a race in France in early July over a mile and a half. There is the King George at the end of July, but we will be on a constant weather watch.”