Irving runs at Kelso tomorrow One-time Derby aspirant Washington Irving takes the next step along the road to forging a new career for himself in the totepool Premier Kelso Hurdle. The five-year-old finished fifth behind New Approach at Epsom in 2008 and sixth behind Conduit in the St Leger when trained by Aidan O'Brien. He was bought by Graham and Andrea Wylie for 300,000 guineas after an aborted attempt on the Ascot Gold Cup the following year. He impressed on his first start over timber for Howard Johnson but gave the useful Bygones Of Brid too much rope on his last start at Newcastle. Johnson has not lost faith in the Montjeu gelding but believes he would appreciate better ground than he will get at the Borders venue tomorrow. "He'll go up to Kelso and hopefully he'll have a good chance," said the County Durham handler. "He needed the run at Newcastle last time and the winner got first run on him as well, you can't give a lot of ground away in really bad ground. "What he wants is a bit of nice ground, but he's a good horse."
