Tuesday Racing Tips from Steve Ryder

This looks a competitive juvenile maiden hurdle but I feel that the market is underestimating the chances of Open Champion (best priced at 9/4) as I think he should be favourite over Active Duty. The Alan King trained four-year-old won at Lingfield on the AW last season when trained by Roger Varian and he ended the season rated 84 on the flat. He was purchased for £70,000 at the end of the season and he joins a stable with a good past record with juvenile hurdlers.

Open Champion was rated 6lbs higher than the favourite Active Duty on the flat and despite his rival having more experience over hurdles, it seems noteworthy that the selection still holds an entry for the Triumph Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival next month.

The Ben Pauling trained Lookingdandy (best priced at 10/1) has shown very little in his three four career starts to date but he will hopefully prove better than an opening handicap mark of 85. The five-year-old was sent off only 11/2 to win a Worcester bumper in June before being sent off 80/1, 200/1 and 150/1 in novice hurdles where he finished well beaten by 70 lengths, 31 lengths and 45 lengths.

Lookingdandy should prove better than an opening mark of 85 in the future and I expect him to show an improved performance upped in trip to 2m3f with up to five places on offer.

Trixster has been running consistently well on his recent starts but preference goes to Stormy Flight (best priced at 15/8) who bounced back to form last time at Chepstow. The Jeremy Scott trained nine-year-old had previously dropped 10lbs in only four runs down to a mark of 114 before finishing 2nd last time.

That was Stomy Flight’s first run following a wind operation and it meant that the gelding finished only beaten 1 ¼ lengths at the finish. The handicapper has raised him 1lb for that effort which is fair and I expect him to prove hard to beat in this race.