Grey Dawning and Iroko en route to Aintree via Kelso

The Aintree-bound pair of Grey Dawning and Iroko do battle in an intriguing renewal of the bet365 Premier Chase at Kelso on Saturday.

A Cheltenham Festival winner in the now defunct Turners Novices’ Chase last season, Grey Dawning headed into the current campaign with Gold Cup aspirations, but that particular dream was dashed after he was pulled up in the King George at Kempton on Boxing Day.

Trainer Dan Skelton is instead targeting the Aintree Bowl and views this weekend’s Listed contest in the Scottish Borders as an ideal stepping-stone ahead of his return to Grade One level on Merseyside.

“You have to be adaptive – he’s in great form, he looks outstanding and I think he’ll take a lot of beating,” said the Alcester handler.

“I think if things go well at Kelso, then he’ll turn up at Aintree in the best possible shape. I would imagine that after a Gold Cup 19 days before, there’s not going to be many turn up in the shape they need to be in at Aintree, thus my thinking is what it is.”

Grey Dawning made a fine start to his season when narrowly beaten by Haydock favourite Royale Pagaille in November’s Betfair Chase, but a bad error at the first fence in the King George set the tone for a disappointing display.

“I think he had recovered to go to Kempton. I think what happened at Kempton is that he made that mistake at the first which put us on the back foot and the speed Il Est Francais went made the three-milers look like four-milers that day,” Skelton added.

“It put us all on the back foot a bit, not least us because we’d made the mistake at the first and it was just one of those days. It didn’t work out for him, so you put it in the bin – he came out of it fine and let’s worry about it another day.”

The JP McManus-owned Iroko has had the Randox Grand National as his primary objective since the start of the season.

Trained in partnership by Oliver Greenall and Josh Guerriero, the seven-year-old was second in a graduation chase on Betfair Chase day at Haydock and while he fell on his next start at Ascot, there were plenty of positives to be taken from his eye-catching fourth at Cheltenham in January.

“He’s in great form and we’re looking forward to seeing him run,” said Guerriero.

“We’re a few pounds wrong with the Skelton horse, but whether he had a hard race in the Betfair Chase I don’t know, as he didn’t look like he was enjoying it much last time in the King George.

“We’ll have a go and take him on anyway. We were keen to go left-handed, which is half the reason we didn’t go to the Ladbrokes Trophy at Kempton last weekend, and this looked a suitable race.

“It’s all about Aintree really, so fingers crossed.”

A small but select Premier Chase field is completed by Lucinda Russell’s talented mare El Elefante and Laura Horsfall’s huge outsider Barrons Land.