Saturday tips from Martin Dixon: "7-1 looks generous"

Having recorded just 25 winners last season, Tom Lacey endured a quiet spell for most of the 2024-25 campaign, but he's already up to 20 winners this season plus is operating at an impressive 28 per cent strike-rate.

The Lord Maid is a mare with upside this season, in my opinion, and she ended on a high in April when winning a mares' handicap at Ayr in good style. She defeated the in-form Listed winner, Lavida Adiva, and that form has already started to work out well with subsequent winners further down the field. 

A 6lb rise leaves The Lord Maid on a fair mark, and she remains lightly raced over these staying distances that clearly suit well. With the stable so far forward, I expect this to be more of a 'Cup final' for her compared to others returning from absences in this Pertemps Qualifier. 

Ben Pauling is another trainer going well at this early point of the season and, ahead of racing on Friday, he's saddled five winners in November already.

Champagne Twist is a well-handicapped performer based on his novice hurdle form from the 2023-24 season when he landed the EBF Final at Sandown.

All three starts last term were a disaster but in a recent Stable Tour with the Racing Post, the trainer said "there was one problem after another [but] he's looking great now and moving fabulously".

This doesn't look a strong handicap chase and I think if Pauling has got him right, he will take plenty of beating from a mark that's just 5lb higher than when winning at Sandown in 2024.

I've always had him down as the type to do even better over fences as his dam, Aunt Nora, was a revelation in her only season chasing, progressing markedly to win a Grade Two chase having been beaten in handicap hurdles off a rating of 103 and 104 the season before. 

I always like bold-jumping, front runners over this two-mile Mildmay Course at Aintree, and Javert Allen is exactly that. 

He made a flying start to life over fences last season, impressing with his exuberance and jumping when winning at Newbury and Chepstow before the turn of the year, and I think his subsequent short-head defeat back at Chepstow, in a race that produced a big speed figure, leaves him well treated off a rating of 127. 

He has a proven record when fresh having scored on his debut in 2022, and first time out last year, so I'm not concerned about a 231-day absence. Odds of 7-1, at the time of writing, look generous. 

I still can't quite fathom how Johnnywho managed to get edged out in the Kim Muir at the Cheltenham Festival in March, but that was a hugely promising first start in a handicap chase as he tanked his way through the race, and handled himself with aplomb in a much more competitive scenario than he'd previously faced.

He then contested the BoyleSports Irish Grand National and didn't quite get home, but still travelled strongly for a long way off the same rating of 146 as he races off here. 

I've always beleived he was a chaser with a huge amount of talent and I'm hopeful the nature of this race - with plenty of runners and a flat-out gallop over an intermediate trip - will see him to good effect. 

There's always a chance that there will be bigger targets ahead, but he's won first time out in each of the past three seasons, and this is a big prize in its own right.

Connections will also be aware that he'll probably need to edge up a few more pounds if they see him as a Randox Grand National-type for the Spring.