RACING: Calgary Bay joins the party for Knight (From Oxford Mail)

RACING: Calgary Bay joins the party for Knight

6:30pm Wednesday 17th March 2010 in

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Calgary Bay represents Henrietta Knight’s West Lockinge stables, near Wantage, in the totesport Cheltenham Gold Cup on Friday following a late change of heart.

Knight, who famously saddled Best Mate to complete a Gold Cup treble from 2002-4, was hoping to run the seven-year-old in the William Hill Trophy Handicap Chase on Tuesday.

But Camilla and Tim Radford, Lincolnshire-based owners of the bay gelding, are keen to have a crack at big guns Kauto Star and Denman in chasing’s blue riband.

Terry Biddlecombe, Knight’s husband, said: “The owners would like to have a runner in the Gold Cup, so it’s in for a penny in for a pound.”

Calgary Bay, who will be ridden by Graham Lee, hasn’t run since winning a handicap chase in impressive fashion at Doncaster in December.

And Biddlecombe is under no illusions about the size of the task the 66-1 outsider faces.

“If he is in the first four we will be delighted,” he said.

“There is rain coming and he wants top of the ground – the faster the ground the better for him.

“With rain on watered ground it can make it very tacky.

“I think Kauto Star will win. There are a few holes in him like any good horse.

“But his jumping has improved and I don’t know about Denman.

“If it rains and gets a bit soft, then he would have a fair old chance.

“It will be very exciting whichever way it goes.”

Even though Calgary Bay will be Knight’s first Gold Cup runner since Best Mate completed his historic hat-trick, Biddlecombe played down suggestions that it would evoke memories of those magical days.

“It is another horse, another day – that has gone,” he said.

“You don’t go back on memories like that until you retire from racing.”