Horse Talk with Simon Jackson:

Top horse-racing tips and the latest news. 

Paddington wins the St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot. (PIc: Megan Ridgwell, courtesy of Ascot Racecourse).

PADDINGTON targets a fourth successive Group 1 victory in the £1million Qatar Sussex Stakes on day two of the Qatar Goodwood Festival on Wednesday. 

Aidan O’Brien’s charge has won six of his seven lifetime starts and is unbeaten in five runs this season that includes a Group 1 hat-trick of victories in the Tattersalls Irish 2,000 Guineas, St James’s Palace Stakes and Coral-Eclipse Stakes.

Paddington stepped up to 10 furlongs for the first time when winning the Coral-Eclipse at Sandown on July and O’Brien has no concerns on returning to the one mile distance of the Sussex Stakes. 

O’Brien said: “I hold Paddington in very high regard. He is very natural, very quick and very straightforward. He is a little bit different, we think, and the way he has progressed from run to run is very unusual. 

“Ryan [Moore] always thought he had lots of pace and coming back to a mile won’t be a problem. We were delighted with him in the Eclipse and we always had the Sussex Stakes as part of his programme. 

“He has been putting on weight after every run. He was much heavier heading into the Eclipse than he was before Ascot, which is quite unusual. He thrives on work and everyone involved with him is very happy. 

“He has gone from strength to strength and Ryan is very impressed with him all the time. He is standing up to a lot of scrutiny and it is the ease with which he is doing it. He looks a serious horse at the moment. 

“The Sussex Stakes is a very prestigious race that has stood the test of time. For a horse going to stud, it is very important with it being the first time the three-year-olds can take on the older milers,” O’Brien said to representatives of the QIPCO British Champions Series. 

Regarding Paddington’s high head carriage in the closing stages of his races, O’Brien said: “Every horse is different and every human being is different.

“We all carry ourselves differently and that is the way he carries himself. The lads who ride him say he is very aggressive – when you ask him to quicken, he really gets hold of the bit and does quicken. He is quite unusual and I suppose everything he is doing is very different.

“He just looks a special horse.”

Read ‘Horse Talk with Simon Jackson’ for top horse racing tips and the latest news.