Cheekpieces or blinkers, plus a potential session over fences – latest Lady Mendoza update

28 Jun 2023
Lady Mendoza
We decided against running Lady Mendoza at Cartmel this week as we just felt it might come a bit quick for her after that Uttoxeter race.

There’s also plenty of rain forecast, so conditions probably would have been on the slow side for her anyway, so it’s just best to give her a bit more time and find a more suitable opportunity in the near future. 

We’ve moved her to one of the outside stables at the yard just to see if a bit of a change of scenery perks her up a bit. I know Brian [Hughes] felt she raced quite lazily at Uttoxeter and was a bit outpaced, but we’ve never felt she was a slow horse.

She showed plenty of speed when second at Newcastle on her first run for us, and you don’t become a slow horse overnight, so we are going to try a few things just to perk her up. We’ll probably work her in some headgear at home and see how she responds to a set of cheekpieces or maybe even some blinkers. She definitely didn’t travel like we know she can at Uttoxeter, so we are just going to try a few things at home to see if we get her going again. 

Provided we get the rain that is forecast up here this week, then we also plan to school her over fences to see how she takes to the larger obstacles. Providing she jumps well, then that will give us plenty more opportunities for her with staying novice chases, so hopefully everything goes to plan and we can look forward to sending her chasing in the near future. 

I’ll keep an eye on the programme book and keep everybody updated regarding our plans, but hopefully it won’t be too long till we can see Lady Mendoza back on the track again.

Rebecca Menzies, Coral Racing Club Trainer
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