Darlington, pork pie capital of the world, is getting its teeth into horse racing, too.

No matter that Pies Ar Us came last at Southwell on Monday - last, indeed, in the National Chocolate Fondue Day Hurdle (Class E) - or that after a previous outing the Racing Post unkindly suggested that if anyone had eaten all the pies, it was probably the success starved also ran.

The horse, like the pies, is made of good stuff, nonetheless.

"He's still very green but a super mover and a super temperament," says Middleham trainer Chris Fairhurst. "Finishing last didn't reflect his performance, he just blew up near the end.

"He was very weak last year, but in time he's going to be a nice little handicapper."

Pies Ar Us is owned by the Taylor family, pork pie purveyors - and much else - since 1924. Butchers like Prest and Villiers might sound more upper crust, but in a high class race Taylors still come first.

Pictures no longer exist, alas, of the days when the butcher's horse was simply the cuddy that hawked the meat van around Darlington.

The racing authorities wanted to call this one Piesarus, until the family - not unreasonably - suggested that it made it sound like a prehistoric monster. Thanks to Paul Taylor's nine-year-old son James, he's known in the family as Popeye, anyway, though neither spinach nor pork pies feature large in his diet.

"Just good racing formula food," says Paul. "However good our pies, we've to be convinced that they make horses go faster."

The name he concedes, was a bit tongue in cheek, although the advertising may come in useful. "Some of the staff and customers have a flutter, though I'm afraid that up until now they've lost their money."

Both owner and trainer remain hopeful of being in the frame before long, however. Pie in the sky? "The Racing Post," says Paul, "will be made to eat their words."

OTHER columns have wondered how Southwell - pronounced Suthell - come by such weird race names. On January 5, points out Stephen Gilmore from Sedgefield, they ran the National Whipped Cream Day Claiming Stakes and the following Friday the Working Women's Appreciation Day Claiming Stakes.

Stephen believes there to be no connection between the two.

"Races at Southwell are often named after historical events which happened on that day" - National Whipped Cream Day's historical? - "and apparently the clerk of the course surfs the web to find out what happened in the past on that day."

Like Pies Ar Us, this one could run and run.

WHAT of Percy Braithwaite, Colin Woods's nap at Ludlow on Wednesday? "Named after the Yorkshire cricketer," said the Darlington and Stockton Times when, trained by Mark Johnson at Middleham, he won first time out in 1994.

There's also a Percy Braithwaite memorial in the Devonshire Arms near Skipton, at the other end of North Yorkshire - "at every sport he became a legend which has not been surpassed" claims a potted biography of Percy (1884-1953) above the coffee cups.

There are pictures of him in the 1910 Oxbridge tug-of-war championships, at the All England angling finals, graduating from Mrs Horowitz's school of roller skating arts, runner up in the 1915 All England tennis championships, with the Colgate sailing cup and at the Open at St Andrews.

For all the fabulousness of his shrine, however, Percy is legendary only in the original sense. Unlike the horse, fourth on Wednesday, the Great All Rounder never existed.

QUIXALL Crossett, who makes Pies Ar Us resemble clotted caviar by comparison, is enjoying renewed media interest.

Trained by ever-accommodating pig farmer Ted Caine at Bilsdale, between Stokesley and Helmsley and named after former Sheffield Wednesday and England footballer Albert Quixall, he ran his 99th race without success at Kelso last Thursday.

Widely, the game old thing is reckoned an all-time loser. The Observer, however, claims that at Fakenham in 1970 Peggy's Pet ran his 111th race without a win, finally giving up the chase after being pulled up at the ninth.

Our hard hatted man on the website has dug around and simply made the hole bigger. Can anyone fill in?

SPEAKING of filling in, what has become of the most talked about hole since Calcutta?

The vast crater that opened in the summer in Murton FC's once velveteen pitch - as seen on television and in every national newspaper - gapes ever more insatiably.

"The last time I saw it, it looked like Lake Winnipeg," says Murton commercial manager Steve Robson (who's a travel agent and knows about these things.)

A piece in the Albany Northern League club's excellent new programme, however, claimed a couple of weeks back that a £50,000 repair job was about to start. Like the pitch, it proves unfounded.

"We've had no guarantees and are becoming quite worried about the future," says Steve, whose club now ground shares with Ryhope after several months at Peterlee.

Murton parish council clerk Alan Bowmaker has not been available. It is believed, however, that the authority is taking specialist advice from a chap at Newcastle University. In the manner of holes everywhere, he is looking into it.

SIGNED "Staff at Ronan Engineering", a curious e-mail - perhaps best described as a circular, since that's what it's likely to go round and round in - has arrived from Washington (Tyne and Wear.)

"Please help!" it urges. "We collectively try to answer the Tuesday Backtrack trivia questions but have never been able to locate the answers. Please put us out of our misery."

This is difficult, of course, because they appear not to read Friday's paper, or perhaps believe the Echo to be a weekly. And today, when last heard of, was Friday.

Among the answers which by no means alone they seek, however, is that to Teesside industrialist Don Beattie's poser (Tuesday January 30) which began: "Arsenal will never do it until Arsene Wenger leaves...."

Not even our old friend John Milburn (e-mail address shanksisgod) can offer a satisfactory answer, though he slightly bizarrely suggests that it may be something to do with under-soil heating.

We have again e-mailed Mr Beattie, but to no avail - perhaps he has thrown himself from a cooling stack - but hope for further developments shortly. Ronan Engineering will be informed separately.

ANOTHER great all rounder. The only man to have played first class cricket and won a Nobel prize (Backtrack, February 6) is Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, who played twice for Dublin University - when the university enjoyed first class status - against Northamptonshire.

Brian Shaw from Shildon today invites readers to name the only two clubs which have dropped from top to bottom divisions of English professional football in successive seasons.

More of life's vicissitudes, and an up and downer by Weekend First to Marlow, on Tuesday