Another nice trip to Catterick

I generally enjoy going to Catterick.  Unless the traffic is bad, it's easy to get to as it's right on the A1.  It's far enough north to be in lovely countryside.  It's a lovely, friendly course where one gets a warm welcome throughout.  The Catterick Cat lives in the stable-yard and it's always good to spend some quality time with her.  And we often find that our runners there perform respectably.  Yesterday was good because Indira ran a nice race, finishing fourth on her third run back from a long break, continuing to give the impression that she's working her way back to form.

Indira was, needless to say, well beaten by the winner, but the wide-margin winner was one of three three-year-olds in the 12-runner field, and it would be surprising if there were three three-year-olds in a three-year-olds-and-upwards handicap without at least one of them being much better treated by the weights than all the older horses.  And they'd had a lot of rain which made the ground soft, so one could have expected the winner, being a son of Captain Rio, to have developed an extra leg in the conditions.  But Indira, again very well ridden by Emma Sayer, again ran an improved race, so that was good.

The brahma of the day concerned one of the greatest brahma-meisters.  There was an amateurs' race at the end of the card, split into two divisions, and a Mr. T. Coles (7) was down for a ride for Heather Dalton in each division.  Could this be our Toby, formerly of this parish?  Surely not ...?  Well, indeed it is.  Toby, formerly a member of the Newmarket Trainers' Federation, is alive and well, has returned from wandering around the Americas, and has reinvented himself as Mr. T. Coles (7).  So that was excellent, and it was really good to see him.  As for his rides?  Well, it almost goes without saying that there was a story there.  Neither of them actually ran.  One was merely a non-runner, but the other got as far as the start before being withdrawn, for reasons about which I'm still not totally clear, but which may have involved some sort of mishap on the way down.  I'll keep you posted.