Day One Royal Ascot tips: Dave Nevison likes a 28-1 chance

The biggest flat meeting in the world starts tomorrow and as ever is a veritable feast. I have had just three bets ante-post; they have all shortened up - though not dramatically - and I am still solid on all of them. 

Reaching High in the Ascot Stakes is the first, Venetian Sun in the Commonwealth Cup on Friday bids to beat the colts in this Group One, and I think Binhareer would be a good thing in the Wokingham if there is a bit of rain around this week. I am not sure I would back him again at current odds if it were to quicken up.    

Anyone who backed Reaching High in this race last year will probably only now be getting over the desperately unlucky run the King’s horse had. I was a sufferer and decided there and then that I would want to get my money back this year. 

Reaching High simply could not get any sort of run being trapped on the inside from stall one pretty much from the start. He was eased heavily late in the day and still got beaten less than four lengths with Ryan Moore pretty much stood up in the irons. 

He is off the same mark this time around and given I believe he may have won by three lengths with a clear run, the Mullins-trained gelding might even be a stone well in here. 

A draw in stall eight gives Moore more options this time, and the best jockey in the world doesn’t often - if ever - make the same mistake twice.  

Persica lost his form completely after he won the Diomed at the Derby meeting last year, so it is to be hoped that he doesn’t go the same way this season after he was just touched off by a nose in the same race this time around. Persica was gelded over the winter and I am hoping that operation at least partly explains the apparent return to form and also means it will be sustained. 

Persica is invariably campaigned in Group company and performed really well several times, but the last time he was dropped to Listed company he won well at Ayr (two subsequent Group Three wins) and this race looks an ideal target. 

As long as the last run wasn’t a flash in the pan, he looks good enough for a place at least. 

This staying handicap has been won by the favourite on three out of the six runnings; a 2-1 favourite has finished a close second, and a 4-1 second favourite has also scored, so it is difficult to look beyond the front of the market for me. 

Valiancy will be a strong favourite and rightly so for me. He won a seriously strong handicap over this distance at Haydock on his final start last season and reappeared with a win over a slightly shorter trip at Hamilton in May. He looked very much as though he would improve further when stepped back up, and he will get a very strongly-run race here which will suit as well.