Friday tips: Dave Nevison marks your card at Ayr

Triple Crown Ted has never raced outside Scotland and, though he has never won at Ayr, he has run well on all his visits to this track and could be a local hero in this opening race of the National meeting.

The Russell/Scudamore-trained gelding has improved on each of his hurdle runs this season, winning twice at Kelso, and he still looks as though he is capable of improvement judged on his latest start where he lost momentum at the second-last.

Triple Crown Ted goes particularly well on testing ground and, though conditions are soft currently, there is plenty of rain forecast and he will handle any deterioration in the going better than most.

Jipcot was a late non-runner in the Topham at Aintree last week due to the ground quickening up and will have things a lot softer underfoot this afternoon. This nine-year-old is having his second stint over fences and while he is still not the most consistent of performers, he definitely seems to have got the hang of jumping this time around.

He has run well over this course and distance already this season, and was an impressive sight when making all at Leicester.

Things haven’t worked out for him in two subsequent runs, including at the Festival, but in this smaller and less competitive field, Jipcot looks an attractive bet at current odds. The O’Neill’s remain in excellent form.

Eagles Reprieve is admirably consistent having never been out of the frame in seven runs under Rules, in fact never finishing worse than second.

He drifted from odds-on last time, but won by nine lengths nonetheless and doesn’t look to have been at all overburdened for his first run in a handicap, being allocated a mark of 120.

He gets on very well with Jack Power, who claims a very useful 5lb here, and Eagles Reprieve acts very well under the prevailing conditions. This is far and away the most competitive race he has been in, but I  was still surprised to see Eagles Reprieve chalked up at double-figure odds.