HENRIETTA Knight's lightly-weighted gelding Perfect Fellow (2.50) has a great chance of smashing Martin Pipe and Tony McCoy's domination of Cheltenham's prestigious Thomas Pink Gold Cup.

Pipe, responsible for the hot-favourite, Chicuelo, has won the £100,000 showpiece five times, including back-to-back victories over the past two seasons via the Tony McCoy-ridden pair Lady Cricket and Shooting Light.

With the tantalising prospect of a record-breaking Cup treble in his sights, McCoy has been on a strict diet since the start of the week to make the weight of 10st 1lb on Chicuelo. But he could well have been starving himself for nothing so long as Perfect Fellow struts his stuff.

Backers of Perfect Fellow will recall with immense satisfaction just how easily he won on his comeback outing over course and distance 17 days ago, jumping like a stag throughout, unlike his main market rival, Saragann, who bit the dust after belting the second last fence.

Henrietta is well known for not over-egging the pudding at home, so it is quite safe to assume that the progressive eight-year-old will come out of his corner stripping even fitter for his sternest test to date.

Perfect Fellow is not the only one of the Knight team's big guns to show up on a mouth-watering card because in the preceding £50,000 Intervet Trophy Handicap Chase, Southern Star (2.15) bids to defy a 225-day absence.

Such long breaks from action are often sufficient to fettle many a horse, although this may not be the case with Southern Star, who bounced back from a similarly lengthy holiday to collect first time out at Bangor in 2001.

And the success did not stop there as he followed up by trouncing a quality field by an astonishing 28 lengths over three miles at Prestbury Park just over a year ago.

Some top-notch timber merchants clash for the £50,000 Tote Bookmakers Handicap Hurdle over an extended three-miles-and-one-furlong.

Twelve months ago It Takes Time was just too good for Alan King's Spendid, however I fancy the latter to get his revenge, having run encouragingly on his recent reappearance at Wetherby.

King said beforehand that Spendid (1.40) would come on for the outing and with the stable going so well at present the tough-as-teak ten-year-old should be nicely primed to gun down the opposition.

The feature event at Ayr, the D.M. Hall Handicap Chase, appears as if it could turn out to be a match between Ryalux and Kerry Lads (2.30).

Ryalux rarely fails to give less than 100 per cent, but he may struggle to concede a hefty 15lb to Kerry Lads, who helped Tim Reed sign off with a winner on his final ride in public over course and distance last season.

The nap vote goes to Wetherby-bound Joey The Schnoze (2.45), a perennial underachiever to date, but in with a great shout of finally breaking his duck in the Rocom Novices' Handicap Hurdle.

At Wolverhampton's evening fixture, East Riding (8.30) is confidently expected to build on her debut third at Doncaster's November Handicap meeting.

Mark Johnston's filly is a daughter of the speedy Gothenburg, whom he also trained to pick some decent prizes in the late nineties.

East Riding's style suggests she will be admirably suited by the slow surface at the Midlands' track, especially as there have been occasions lately when it has been riding very deep.

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