THE 'People's Racehorse', Evening Press, was hindered by a slow pace in her latest race at Newcastle, as she finished last of five starters.

However, her trainer, Tim Etherington, has already lined up a contest - at Thirsk this Friday - for her to make immediate amends, perhaps with different tactics.

Etherington said after yesterday's one mile two furlongs race that the pace allowed other horses to utilise their better sprint finishes, and admitted he should have allowed jockey Paul Quinn to lead from the front and up the tempo.

"Overall I'm disappointed," he said. "But they crawled for four or five furlongs and made it into a sprint.

"There was no pace after five furlongs - I could have run that fast myself, and if I had thought they would have gone that steadily I would have said to Paul to go out and lead them.

"That's probably what we should have done. If she'd made the running it would have taken the sting out of them and they wouldn't have had the same finish."

The three-year-old filly, leased by readers of the award-winning newspaper off the Norton trainer, started the Send Pro Gamble To 8181 Fillies' Handicap as the rank outsider and, despite taking the lead soon into the home straight, was swallowed up by the field.

The race was won by 11-4 favourite Dadeland with Oriental Moon (6-1) second and joint-second favourite Rani Two (3-1) third.

Updated: 11:59 Tuesday, July 30, 2002