THERE are times when Ryan Moore can look like a man taking on the world single-handedly.

Last year he did just that at Royal Ascot and more than held his own with nine winners, which broke the post-war record of eight set by Lester Piggott in 1965 and again 10 years later and equalled by Pat Eddery in 1989.

Inevitably, judging sportsmen from separate generations brings with it the problems regarding different eras and Piggott and Eddery both achieved their totals in the age of a four-day meeting.

Moore matched that criteria, however, and even though the anoraks might start tugging at their toggles as they point to Nat Flatman booting home 11 winners in 1847 and Fred Archer pushing the bar to 12 in 1878, neither had to compete at a meeting which can now reasonably claim to be the world’s greatest show on turf.

Moore never makes much show and his father, Gary, the former iron-hard jump jockey now turned successful trainer, has said that the day he sees his son waving his whip after winning a race he will know he has lost the plot.

Gaining insight into Moore’s psyche will never be simple on the grounds that he has a naturally shy manner in public from the days as a rising young star whom trainer Richard Hannon Snr would put on “suicide watch” if the jockey had not ridden a winner for two days.

Moore has been described as being as prickly as a porcupine but a porcupine only uses those sharp spines as a form of defence and the jockey’s mind and dry wit can be equally to the point.

“I had good rides and thought I’d have a very good week,” he said of last year’s Royal Ascot. “I went into the meeting thinking I had three or four who couldn’t get beat. One of them won and the others got beat.”

When asked to sum up his week after War Envoy had won the Britannia Stakes on the Thursday for his eighth wonder of the meeting, it might have been an excuse for some to stand in the limelight and wait for the photographers to catch their best side.

Moore simply took a deep breath and allowed the kaleidoscope of thoughts that were still cascading through his mind an hour later to catch up and replied: “I have to move on from the Gold Cup,” referring to the defeat of Kingfisher who if it had not been for bad luck might have had no luck at all during the race.

“To be honest I was only joking that time,” he said with the ghost of a grin last week but admitted: “The end of the week was disappointing because I didn’t ride a winner on the Saturday”.

Moore does not have quite the poker face of Piggott – once described as looking like a well-kept grave – and the mask does slip briefly as when he showed his delight after the victory of Estimate, owned by the Queen, in the Gold Cup three years ago.

The fear is sometimes that the intensity of his pursuit of success denies him the pleasure that should come from such moments but Moore said: “It was important and it meant more to a lot of people than it would do usually and that gets back to you.

“It’s Royal Ascot and apart from Derby day this is the most important week of the year. This is like the Masters or a Grand Slam event in tennis.”

The difference is that those events stand alone, while the glittering prizes appear at Ascot on a conveyor belt set to fast forward.

“It’s one race at a time and after it’s gone, it’s gone,” he added. “You have to focus because there’s one every 35 minutes.”

For most of those races he will be riding the horses trained by Aidan O’Brien and the majority will go to post as favourite with the fate of millions of pounds resting on the outcome, including when he rides The Gurkha in the St James’s Palace Stakes on Tuesday.

The Gurkha won the Poule d’Essai des Poulains at Deauville last month and takes on 2000 Guineas winner Galieo Gold and the horse who beat him in the Irish equivalent, Awtaad.

“It’s probably one of the most exciting races at the meeting,” Moore said. “Three Guineas winners, they were all good winners of their races, and the ground will probably play a part. The Gurkha won on quick ground in Deauville and he won on soft [at Leopardstown last year].”

Moore has shown that he can handle anything that this meeting can throw at him, so what is his secret? That grin makes another appearance as he says: “Get on the best horses.”

Manage to do that and you can take on the world.