Saturday tips: Dave Nevison's selections at Haydock

Escapeandevade made his debut for Harry Derham in a decent event at Worcester last time out and, perhaps unsurprisingly, came back to somewhere near his best form when finishing second to a useful, and unexposed, chaser from the Jonjo and A J O’Neill yard. 

The selection is a nine-year-old, and has run plenty of times over fences, but may well have improvement in him for his new yard. He also has a fitness advantage over some promising rivals who are making their seasonal debuts here. 

Escapeandevade’s last win over fences came off a rating of 128, and he is 7lb lower than that here, so could be seriously well handicapped. 

Kabral Du Mathan won on his reappearance last season for Paul Nicholls and ran good races all season, including when finishing a close second in the Coral Scottish Champion Hurdle on his final start. 

He makes his yard debut for Dan Skelton here, which might be a tip in itself, and the master tactician has changed a couple of things, that could be positives. 

A wind operation might help, but the I believe the smartest move is stepping this five-year-old up in trip to 2m3f.

His latest effort appeared to demonstrate that he was always going to be up against it in high-class handicaps over the minimum trip, and I think he could improve significantly over this distance.

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Horaces Pearl might be a staying handicap hurdler to follow this season, and with Fergal O’Brien in good form, he can make a winning reappearance. 

After winning his bumper, he hacked up in two modest novice hurdles before improving in two runs in open company when stepped up in trip. 

His final start was most eye-catching, and promised the most for this season. He was held up there, possibly because of the step up to three miles, but was too far out of his ground. When asked to stay on, he didn’t get a clear run through, and while he managed to snatch third, he could have got much closer. 

A rating of 135 looks generous given that promising effort, and with Tom Broughton taking off a valuable 5lb, Horaces Pearl should go well against more exposed rivals. 

This eight-year-old has clearly been difficult to train, but showed last season that he can run very well after a break when he returned from an absence of almost two years to score on his sole start of the season. 

Shomen Uchi has certainly been lightly raced, but has proved to be a useful performer in all disciplines having shaped with bundles of promise in bumpers, and then did well in just three outings over hurdles, all of which were building him up to a chasing career, which got off to a perfect start over 2m4f at Carlisle in February. 

He steps back up in trip again here, and it is possible a rating of 135 for his handicap debut might seriously underestimate him.