Lady Mendoza given an official handicap mark as she continues to progress following treatment

21 Feb 2023

Lady Mendoza has been on a short course of antibiotics in the last week just to help her get over that bit of sickness she was carrying.

We took her bloods again just to see how she’d responded to the treatment, and I’m delighted to say we’ve seen a big improvement. We will keep a close eye on her over the next week or so, but thankfully she seems in much better form with herself.

We are monitoring all of our team very closely at the moment just to make sure we can react quickly if any of our horses do show any signs of sickness or not being quite right. It seems to have affected the younger horses more, as the older horses seem to be shaking it off a lot quicker, and having spoken to a few other trainers they seem to be going through the same thing.

As I’ve said before, it’s very common this time of year, so it’s something we just have to deal with in the best way we can.

I’m delighted that now Lady Mendoza has had her third run, she’s been allocated a handicap mark of 100.

This is ideal as it allows her to run in those 0-100 contests, so it will open up a whole lot of options for her. We’ll give her time to come back to herself, but we’ll keep one eye on the programme book as we move into the spring to see if we can find a suitable race for her, but now we have that handicap mark it should make life much easier with regards to finding suitable opportunities.

Rebecca Menzies, Coral Racing Club Trainer

So, what exactly is a handicap mark and how does the system work?

Dominic Gardiner-Hill, Head of Handicapping at the BHA, explains in the short video below.

(Credit: British Horseracing Authority YouTube channel, 2018)