Saturday horse racing tips: Betting expert Dave Nevison marks your card

Ciaran Gethings picked up a winner away from Cheltenham this week and can land a Saturday afternoon handicap on a fresh horse ready for a good-ground spring campaign.

He won on good to soft at Uttoxeter in August but his best run came when he finished runner-up on good going at Wetherby in October.

He disappointed at Kempton subsequently and was given a mid-winter break and that looked to have done him good when third in a decent ‘Jumpers’ Bumper’ last month. He is only 1lb higher than at Wetherby and looks to have a decent future over fences.

He might have been flattered when finishing second in last season’s Lanzarote Hurdle over this course and distance, but the handicapper may well have been generous in dropping him 9lb on the back of five runs that have mostly been decent.

He ran very well when fifth in a more competitive event than this at Cheltenham in December and, after a mid-winter break, ran well enough on his recent comeback in a 0-145 Handicap at Newbury. The top-weight in this consolation handicap runs off 133, so this is a considerable drop in grade.

Nightboattoclyro and Breffniboy have both shot up the ratings this winter but now look as though they might have topped out judged on their respective latest runs, and in any case run both on very different ground now. Vive Le Roi has not won for a while, but this is his best chance to correct that.

I feel he has been handicapped to win for some time and he’s back at his ideal trip after running out of gas over three miles in better races recently. He is now 1lb below his last winning mark.

He just runs too aggressively in competitive three-mile mile chases and gives himself no chance of getting home. He has jumped very well on his latest two starts around this track and, even though there is going to be serious competition for the lead, I feel he could put some of the other front-runners out of their comfort zone.

He looks worth chancing at a decent price that things might go well for him.

He absolutely deserves to win one of these big marathons and has run two crackers this season after a spell on the sidelines through injury.

He has gone up for each of the two half-length defeats and he probably just got going a fraction too late at Haydock last time, where he might have won in another few strides. The ground will be ideal and, in my opinion, he will definitely stay.

I have waxed lyrical about Charlie Deutsch and these Venetia Williams chasers all winter and this could be a big one for the combo.