Wednesday Racing Tips: Stars to Align for Johnston colt

Racing on Wednesday comprises of three cards with a little something for all tastes. The second day of Newmarket's Craven Meeting is the main attraction but is joined in the afternoon by a classy jumps offering from Cheltenham. Then, in the evening, there's an all-weather affair at Kempton.

We've got a trio of Wednesday racing tips - featuring handicap debutant Align The Stars for Charlie Johnston in the Newmarket finale - for you to mull over.

13:30 Cheltenham - Peaky Boy @ 6/4

Nicky Henderson's stable were under a major cloud during last month's Cheltenham Festival, resulting in a raft of big-race withdrawals, but the Seven Barrows supremo was all smiles at Aintree last week as his string showed themselves to be well and truly over those issues.

PEAKY BOY was a convincing course and distance winner here at Cheltenham (heavy) on New Year's Day on his hurdles bow. The Newcastle bumper winner was having his first start in 410 days, following a wind op, and came clear to win well from Champagne Twist, with Ben Pauling's charge advertising the form positively by winning on his next two starts.

This novices' contest will demand more, as both Diamond Ri for Joe Tizzard and the Gavin Cromwell-trained Encanto Bruno have shown more than enough to suggest that Peaky Boy will be forced to improve to take their measure on these terms.

However, he looked quite useful based on that effort here and can take the required forward step to remain unbeaten over timber for Henderson and Nico de Boinville.

14:40 Cheltenham - Sail Away @ 4/1

The feature at Cheltenham is the Matt Hampson Foundation Silver Trophy Handicap Chase, a Grade 2 over 2m4½f in which last month's Festival Plate fifth In Excelsis Deo is likely to hold leading claims for Harry Fry off an unchanged rating.

It's competitive stuff, however, and SAIL AWAY could be a good alternative for the title-chasing Dan Skelton operation.

After arriving from France for last season, he won twice over fences at Warwick and Ayr over three-miles as a novice and also showed himself adept at this sort of trip.

He was competitive in a trio of handicaps at Newbury (2m4f) and Doncaster (3m) this season following a wind operation in his downtime.

Sail Away comes here after running a commendable race in the Grade 1 Ascot Chase in February over 2m5f when beaten around 10-lengths behind impressive winner Pic D'orhy. This mark of 142 is within his reach.

17:20 Newmarket - Align The Stars @ 11/2

Newmarket's curtain call on day two of the Craven Meeting is a handicap contest over a mile-and-a-quarter and Charlie Johnston's colt ALIGN THE STARS may be nicely treated.

The son of Sea The Stars had three runs last season as a juvenile, finishing second in maidens at Hamilton and Goodwood in the autumn before a fourth-place effort at Chelmsford in November in novice company.

He was slowly away from the stalls in that contest and it left him in a poor position from which to mount his challenge, but he made up some good late ground under Richard Kingscote nonetheless.

Two of the three that finished ahead of him have run well since and are rated mid-to-high 80s, so an opening mark of 79 could be on the lenient side now for a colt with plenty of scope to do better this season.

Joe Fanning takes over in the plate for the first time and a jolt of improvement from this promising sort is very likely.