Fife trainer Nick Alexander hoping for back-to-back wins with ​Elvis Mail in £50,000 Kelso feature race

​The ten-year-old grey gelding, trained at Kinneston, near Glenrothes, has been entered for the 3.55pm Edinburgh Gin Chase, a limited handicap over three miles and two furlongs, for the second year running.

That’s a race he won 12 months ago with Hawick’s Bruce Lynn riding, beating Gloucestershire trainer Fergal O’Brien’s Highland Hunter by two lengths for his fifth first-placed finish at the Borders course.

Lynn will be in the saddle again this weekend as Alexander keeps his eyes on a top prize of £26,015.

“He’s in good form and it is definitely the intention to run,” he said.

“We know he loves the track and he won the race last year from 3lb lower.

“He usually goes well fresh after his summer holidays and this was the obvious race to start him back in again. That has been the plan since last April so fingers crossed there aren’t any last-minute hitches.”

Cumbrian trainer Nicky Richards has Sean Quinlan pencilled in to ride Famous Bridge as one of the other eight entries for that race despite the eight-year-old bay gelding having been out of action since March.

La Renommee, a six-year-old bay mare trained by Richard Newland and Jamie Insole in Worcestershire and with Charlie Hammond as jockey, is also entered, having been been raised 10lb after winning at Ludlow earlier this month.

Fellow entry Young Buster, an eight-year-old bay gelding trained by O’Brien and with Jonathan Burke riding, lines up on the back of a 100% success rate to date at Kelso, thanks to two wins over shorter distances last November and December under now-retired Paddy Brennan.

The Edinburgh Gin Chase has always been popular with Perth and Kinross trainer Lucinda Russell too, having won it in 2016 with future Grand National hero One For Arthur, and she’s got two entries pencilled in, Apple Away and Your Own Story.

A seven-race card concluding at 5.05pm gets under way with the two-mile Halloween After Party National Hunt Maiden Hurdle at 1.35pm, and its 18 provisional entries include Blow a Fortune, trained in Dumfries and Galloway by Iain Jardine, and Kelso handler Sandy Thomson’s Bridge Court.

Course managing director Jonathan Garratt said: “We are really pleased with the quality of the entries for Saturday’s fixture.

“It’s a fun social occasion and we are expecting a large crowd.”

Advance tickets cost £23 and entry on the day is £28. For details, go to https://kelso-races.co.uk/