Lady Mendoza has been in great form since that run at Catterick, so although it was a disappointing result, she’s come out of it exactly how you’d want her to. She looks really well in herself, and she’s been eating well, so I can’t knock her at all to be honest.

We’ve had a lot of rain up here recently, which I don’t think she’s enjoying too much, but we’ve just been cantering away with her for now. We won’t gallop her until we get a bit better weather. As she’s generally fit and well within herself, she’ll only need a couple of sharp bits of work nearer the time to get her back on song.

As I said last time, our plan with her now is to wait for that drier weather, as we know she hates the testing ground that we currently have up and down the country. We’ll hopefully find a nice race for her nearer the spring, and it would be great if she goes and wins, but even if she runs another solid race, as she did at Newcastle, then we’ll at least have a handicap mark. That should open up plenty of nice opportunities for her through the spring/summer, so hopefully 2023 will be a really exciting year for Lady Mendoza.

Rebecca Menzies, Coral Racing Club Trainer