Royal Ascot can test the nerve - here's how to deal with a damaging losing spell

It is four days until the start of Britain's biggest Flat meeting. Royal Ascot is a surprisingly divisive fixture considering its standing, and is sure to draw eye-rolls from devoted jumps followers and those who have no truck with the upper-class pageantry.

While there is a degree of personal sympathy with both positions, refusing to join in with racing of such world-class quality is a study in cantankerous joylessness that would embarrass Waldorf and Statler.

Whatever your thoughts on the meeting, which is inevitably compared with its jumps cousin, the Cheltenham Festival, one aspect on which Ascot undoubtedly leads the way is race planning.