FORMER jockey and BBC favourite Clare Balding is in the saddle for Celebrity Traitors, The Sun can reveal.
The long-standing TV and radio host and commentator, 53, is set to appear in her first reality series after shunning several previous offers.
Sources said she agreed because she is taken with the guile and cunning of Claudia Winkleman’s murder mystery game staged at Ardross Castle in the Scottish Highlands.
Clare is poised to join stars including Olympic diver Tom Daley, 30, and TV personality Stephen Fry, 67, for the first celebrity version.
The source said: “Clare is an absolutely brilliant signing because she’s always turned down reality offers flat.
“As such, this will offer the first real glimpse into what she’s like as a person.
“She’s known to generations of TV viewers from fronting everything from racing and the Olympics through to Crufts and occasionally Countryfile.
“And could anyone really believe that the Beeb’s dependable, sensible face of sport could be a treacherous liar?”
Clare has told previously that she was approached to take part in the Beeb’s Strictly Come Dancing and ITV’s I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here!” She declared: “I wouldn’t do it.
“If they were building a school in Africa or something worthy I’d do it.”
She has proven to be good to her word and did go on Sports Relief Does The Apprentice in 2008 and has featured on Celebrity Gogglebox for Stand Up To Cancer for three years since 2022 with wife Alice Arnold.
The second series of The Traitors attracted up to four million viewers a night.
A BBC spokesman declined to comment on “speculation” over Clare’s appearance.
