Dave Nevison's Tuesday tips: 40-1 and 28-1 selections on day one at Ascot

Ascot opens with an absolute bang with three Group Ones in the first four races of the meeting and I am massively looking forward to watching the clash of European Guineas winners in the St James's Palace.

I will be having to watch it with one eye as I am covering Thirsk in the Racing TV studios and am hoping to get a big priced each way double up in the two big staying handicaps.

Reaching High doesn’t take much finding as a selection for this race and could easily prove to be a complete handicap blot.

The five-year-old's mother memorably won the Gold Cup for the Queen a few years ago and, while he has not yet shown her talent, he looks to have inherited plenty of stamina and has only had this race as his target ever since he moved across to the Willie Mullins yard.

He got beat a short head on his stable reappearance but ran very well and teams up with Ryan Moore who has won this race for Mullins twice in the past. Reaching High is aiming to be a “hats off” moment for the King and has a very obvious chance of making it happen. 

Artistic Star is a very different proposition and is one of the big priced outsiders.

Ralph Becket’s five-year-old has had injury problems and lost his way since he ran third in the King Edward VII at this meeting in 2023. However, he did show signs last time he might be on the way back when running fourth at Newmarket.

7lb claimers have won two of the last five runnings of this race and the booking of claimer Jack Dace, who is making a very strong impression, looks interesting. Artistic Star looks to be off a decent mark here and the 7lb makes him look a decent prospect to run into a place at a big price. 

Jojo Rabbit represents the Ruth Carr stable who are having a terrific time in 2025 and this horse is another example of an exposed sprint handicapper who had run himself down to a winnable handicap mark and took advantage now that the yard had hit form.

He won off a mark of 62 last time, but was running well off marks in the mid 70s a while ago. I believe that now the seven-year-old has won again, he will be able to follow up, even though he is 5lb higher for winning by a narrow margin. 

Real Dream has finished last on three of his last six starts and clearly carries risk in a Royal Ascot handicaps. The six-year-old was a very expensive yearling and never lived up to his pedigree for Sir Michael Stoute and has had two wind operations already.

He did run some good races, however, and some of the best of them came after a break, and it is almost ten weeks since we last saw him. He is now with Ian Williams who is a specialist with staying handicappers and Real Dream did run well on his first appearance for the yard when placed over a shorter trip on the all-weather.

He has scored over this course and distance previously and looked an Ebor prospect when he did so and, if Williams can get him back to that level of form, he has a good chance here.