The possibility to use reduced proper motions for distinguishing red horizontal branch giants from foreground stars is substantiated. Our approach is developed on the basis of HIPPARCOS astrometric data and near-infrared 2MASS photometric data taken from the UCAC2 BSS catalogue. The application of maximum-likelihood technique to analyse the distribution of reduced proper motions is resulted in a sample of 7029 HIPPARCOS stars assigned as probable candidates to red clump. It is shown that about 90 % of the sample stars may be actual red horizontal branch giants.