Henrietta Knight has admitted she did not envisage running her new stable star Calgary Bay in the Irish Independent Arkle Trophy at the start of the season.

Always held in high regard by his astute handler, the imposing six-year-old has won only one of his three starts over fences.

However, he went into plenty of notebooks with a scintillating display of jumping to win the Grade Two Dipper Novices' Chase at Cheltenham on New Year's Day.

A defeat at Ascot last time was put down to his dislike of right-handed tracks.

"He does jump well, but everybody is going to need a lot of luck because there is such a big field for an Arkle," said Knight.

"We know he's much better going left-handed so it wasn't a major shock to us that he was beaten at Ascot.

"We had a rather slow start to the season because he had fallen over on the road and cut his knees open so we had to wait and see what happened when we started chasing him.

"But I certainly didn't have the Arkle in mind when we started chasing him.

"We're quite happy with the ground but even if the rain came that wouldn't really bother him."

Andy Stewart has hinted ante-post favourite Tatenen, trained by Paul Nicholls, could bid to make all the running.

He said: "I know he got beat in Ireland last time but I do think he has a favourite's chance.

"We are looking to be bowling along there, well up with the pace at the top of the hill and say 'catch us if you can'."

Calgary Bay was beaten a length by I'msingingtheblues at Doncaster on his chasing debut.

Seen by many as Nicholls' second-string to Tatenen, he is the highest-rated horse in the field of 18.

"I rode him a bit negatively at Doncaster the first time there when we beat Calgary Bay, so we decided to be more positive on him the next day," said his big-race rider Christian Williams.

"He's had plenty of practice over fences and we were obviously delighted when he won a £100,000 handicap."

Another prominent in the betting is Ferdy Murphy's northern raider Kalahari King.

"We just have to hope the rain stays away now and everything has gone the right way for him this season," said Murphy.

"I think it is a very open race and it is just a matter of having the breaks and everything going right for you."

Tartak has been well backed at each-way prices in the last few weeks and is now no better than a 14-1 chance for Tom George.

"His preparation has gone according to plan and we've done everything we can," said George.

"We could do with the rain that is forecast just to slow things down a bit, but we can't do anything about that.

Arguably the horse with the strongest form in the race is the Irish challenger Forpadydeplasterer.

Tom Cooper's seven-year-old has finished second in Grade One company on his last three starts.