Dave Nevison's Tuesday Tips: Bad Company looks a good bet

I usually regard the Chepstow meeting that took place at the weekend as the start of the Jumps season proper and it certainly was an indicator that Paul Nicholls is sure to be a major force again this season, which wasn’t exactly unexpected! Hopefully we can get a winner or two on board from these three selections.

Perfect Myth attempts to defy a double-penalty here, a feat I believe is usually a very tough ask for a novice, and while she is bound to run well given her experience I feel she has a tougher task here and the likes of Daranova might improve past her.

He looked to have progressed when he made his reappearance at Warwick last month. To my eyes he appeared set to win for most of the race but got very tired after a mistake at the second last and ended up getting beat. I expect him to have progressed fitnesswise for that run and score here under the excellent Bryan Carver, who starts the season with the most valuable 5lb claim around.

Perhaps he didn’t enjoy the cheekpieces that were applied last time, as he certainly didn’t jump well in them and was eventually pulled up. Maybe he was just another horse who found the Southwell chase course a tough assignment, but it was still a very disappointing effort after he had previously been very narrowly beaten in a similar race and had shown that he had generally taken well to steeplechasing.

His trainer has been in excellent form on the track, as well as on Twitter, in this early part of the season and I expect him to get a win out of this six-year-old sooner rather than later.

Jim Boyle's charge has excelled in conditions similar to these the last twice and looks an obvious selection for the hat-trick here.

He escapes a penalty as his recent success came in an apprentices' handicap which he won by a convincing two-and-a-half lengths and the opposition looks of similar quality. He is reunited with Charlie Bennett who won on him on his first victory and the trip is obviously ideal, so if he is in the same form he should be a good thing.