Bowman's Crossing (Shane Dye) will be one of the very strong home defence of the afternoon's feature, the $14 million Audemars Piguet Queen Elizabeth II Cup. While better known for his deeds at 1,600 metres - which includes a second to Lucky Owners in the Hong Kong Mile on international day last December - the handsome bay is surely due for a change of luck and today could be when he finally gets it.

Bowman's Crossing, bred in Ireland by Coolmore Stud managing director Eddie Irwin, is entered for the Group One Queen Anne Stakes over the straight mile at Royal Ascot, while Cape of Good Hope is entered for the same two sprints that Choisir annexed for Australia last year - a Group Two over 1,000 metres on the Tuesday and a Group One over 1,200 metres on final day.

'It's wonderful just to have two horses good enough to consider going back, and with each of these horses the owners are very keen and supportive,' Oughton explained.

'Although Bowman's Crossing gets 2,000 metres all right, I think it's at the top end of his distance range. He's a better miler and I really think the straight mile at Ascot will suit him down to the ground.

'With Cape of Good Hope, although he's entered in two races I think he would probably just run in the one, the King's Stand. I'm not sure how he'd cope backing up after just four days, I just doubt it would suit him.'

Oughton arrived in Hong Kong in June, 1987, with wife Jane and two small children. The youngsters have grown up and are now back in England at university.

'Chloe is 21 and she's at Bristol University in her final year, majoring in English and drama,' he said. 'Charlie is 19 and in his first year at Edinburgh.'

The whole Hong Kong experience has been a life-changing one for the Oughtons, beyond anything he'd imagined when he first came here for a reconnaissance mission for 10 days prior to Christmas in 1986.

'My father [Sussex-based trainer Alan Oughton] had a friend training here, Gordon Smythe, and he arranged for me to come here, meet Gordon, and have a look around,' he recalled. 'It was one of those classic cases of being in the right place at the right time. An Australian trainer here, Cliff Robertson, had decided to go home and the director of racing asked me if I'd be interested in the position.

'Naturally, I said yes, and we moved over at the end of that season. I'd only been training for five years in England, so it was a great opportunity.'

Oughton recalls arriving to pick up a small team of 12 horses for the 1987-88 season, from which he grafted 15 wins. 'At the end of my first year, Gordon Smythe retired and I ended up with 60 horses. I'd had 60 all the way through until the last couple of years, but I'm only running 30 at the present time.'

Although Oughton's string is just half the size of Hong Kong's training big guns, he remains one of the most feared and respected handlers in the business.

'David always seems to have a good horse in his stable and when he has one in a big race, it runs well,' said friend and rival David Hayes, himself no stranger to the bright lights of Group One competition.

'Look at last December, on international day. David had runners in each of the four Group One internationals - the only trainer to do so - that's an amazing feat, especially for a trainer with a smaller stable. And all four of them ran well, with Bowman's Crossing possibly being a bit unlucky not to have won the Hong Kong Mile.

'The style of person he is, very calm and relaxed, it seems to be the perfect temperament for preparing a horse for a big race. He's got it right too often for it to be a fluke.'

Oughton admits to a certain level of satisfaction at the growing strength of his big-race-trainer tag, one that was underlined last season when Precision won both the $18 million Hong Kong Cup and the $8 million Champions & Chater Cup.

'My old boss, Captain Ryan Price, was excellent at setting a horse for a race, and I think I learned a lot from him,' Oughton explained. 'It's very satisfying, planning for a big event and seeing it come off. When it happens, I do get a big kick out of it.'

This season has been a quiet one by Oughton's high standards, to date revealing just 11 wins. As usual, though, he's way above the average on the score of prize money, with those 11 winners and another 33 minor placings having earned the stable over $20 million in stakes.

Last season, spearheaded by Precision's big double, was a personal best for Oughton, with the team banking over $38 million for the owners. His HK tally across the full spectrum of those 17 seasons is now 419 winners, and counting.

It may seem a far cry from those days in the early 1980s at the Sussex township of Findon, where he had a rag-tag team that was 50 per cent flat performers and the balance being national hunt horses. However, as champion trainers like Vincent O'Brien, Aidan O'Brien and the late Colin Hayes have repeatedly demonstrated, the lessons of the cross-country branch of the sport have proved invaluable when applied to the flat code.

Oughton believes his Royal Ascot vision is anything but a pipe dream. 'We know the international form here in December is sound, and Bowman's Crossing showed his class in the Hong Kong Mile and, remember, he'd had an interrupted preparation and wasn't fully fit,' he said.

'I saw an item in the Racing Post [UK] the other day, rating the world's leading older sprinters. Naturally, Silent Witness was number one but they had Cape of Good Hope as number two, with the best British sprinters well down the list.

'Going home and competing at Royal Ascot with two good horses will be a special experience. But if we happened to win? Now I would get a big kick out of that.'