'If anyone else had been on board they simply wouldn't have won' - Tom Segal with his Royal Ascot reflections

There are lots of things in this world I don't understand, but one of the biggest of them all is how anyone with a brain could really enjoy going to Glastonbury. The thought of standing in a field in the boiling heat on my own isn't very appetising but with thousands of others is my idea of hell.

Each to their own, though, and while I don't get why anyone would want to do that, there are loads who would describe betting at Royal Ascot these days as pretty barmy too.

Maybe this year was an anomaly and of course you can win, but in about 75 per cent of the races you could make a good case that the best horse gets beaten. I often think it's worth stopping the races at the half-furlong pole and rating the race at that point given how many horses cruise to the front and still don't win.

For me that is why the jockeys are so crucial at Ascot and it was the usual suspects who came to the fore again last week with Ryan Moore and Jamie Spencer standing out like sore thumbs. Moore was very often in the right place and hardly ever got into any trouble, while Spencer rode winners at 50-1 and 80-1.

Jamie Spencer (right): steers Khaadem to victory in the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee StakesCredit: Alan Crowhurst

If anyone else had been on board Witch Hunter or Khaadem they simply wouldn't have won and Spencer rides the straight track like a sprinter in the Tour de France. He hides his horses out the back in the slipstream of all the others and only puts them into the wind in the last half-furlong when everything else is tiring. He has been doing it for years and no-one else can do it like him.

Big-field races on the round course are really tricky and it is almost impossible not to find trouble in running, so much so that it's always best to forgive ground and go round the outside rather than take the risk of dropping in on the rail where luck is going to be needed.

I thought Moore's ride on Okita Soushi and Neil Callan's ride on Burdett Road summed up the round course perfectly. They were both drawn in stall nine but both riders took the option to stay wide and come around the outside.

What that told me was that both jockeys understood what is required to win those round course races and used their brains, while plenty of others either hadn't been watching the racing or were prepared to bring luck into the equation.

Don't get me wrong, riding in those big-field races, especially on the round track, is extremely complicated and it's impossible to make the right split second decision all the time. However, what does bug me is when jockeys don't try to take luck out of the equation and are prepared to try to ride the rail when every year the vast majority of the round track winners come up the outside.

Paddington the pick of the bunch

If I'm being perfectly honest I'm not sure that it was a vintage Royal Ascot on the track with not that many outstanding performances on the clock or visually. The one massive exception was Paddington, who was superb in the St James's Palace and is quickly turning himself into a clone of Aidan O'Brien's previous superstar by Siyouni, St Mark's Basilica.

St Mark's Basilica got better and better with each run and Paddington took a massive step forward at Ascot, beating all the best three-year-old milers easily. The thing about Paddington is that he's bred to get 1m2f or even 1m4f, so after the Sussex it wouldn't surprise me if Paddington was upped to 1m2f at York or Leopardstown. After that who knows, but Siyouni was the sire of Arc winner Sottsass, so it certainly wouldn't be a huge surprise to me if he ended up at Longchamp – he's that good.

Paddington (Ryan Moore) wins the St James's Palace StakesCredit: Edward Whitaker

However, surely that all depends on Auguste Rodin at the Curragh on Sunday, whose Derby-winning form was given boosts all over the place last week. Consequently, it's more likely that Paddington will stick to a mile this season. If that's the case I expect him to clean up because I thought Tahiyra was pretty unimpressive in a weak-looking Coronation Stakes.

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