In the belief that good stuff comes in little bundles, we are delighted to report Dim Sums' £100,000 success in Redcar's biggest race of the year.

Dim Sums is not a case of putting two and two together and making five, of course, but the ever more popular Chinese hors d'oeuvres - made in England, no doubt - which translate literally as "little parcels".

Starters' orders, the horse is trained by David Barron at Maunby, near Thirsk, and was named by his wife Christine - over dinner at the Nags Head in Pickhill, a few miles to the west.

"We needed a name and I was just looking down the menu," says Christine. "He was by Repriced, so it seemed to fit."

Beg pardon?

"You know, if you have to re-price something it means you haven't done your sums very well."

Eh?

"I thought it was a bit too clever at the time," sighs Christine.

The Nags is co-owned by Edward Boynton, himself an amateur rider who knows all about appropriate names for racehorses.

Last year, it may be recalled, he registered one as Gee-Bee-Aitch - as in grievous bodily harm, your worships - after the horse had so badly re-arranged his features that he spent two weeks in hospital.

Gee-Bee-Aitch is no longer in harm's way. "I just couldn't get him sound so I sent him to the sales," says Edward, 48.

"I schooled him over fences and he never once touched a twig, but when I hit the button I was getting problems with him.

"The amazing thing is that no one at the sales asked me why he was called Gee-Bee-Aitch. I wasn't trying to hide it, honestly."

He now has high hopes of Sister Amy by God's Solution out of Amy's Sister - "I got religion while lying in hospital after being bladdered by Gee-Bee-Aitch," insists Edward.

"Sister Amy is very good looking but very posy. I call her my Essex girl."

The Barrons are Nags Head regulars, a plate of dim sum awaiting them whenever the horse does well.

David recently sold the two-year-old to the Pertemps advertising group, plans a winter holiday for him but expects even greater things next season.

As probably they say after the first course of a Chinese banquet, the fun may be only just beginning.

David Barron once trained a horse called Bo Derek, too, wrote to the actress seeking her permission and was as delighted as she when Bo Derek again proved a winner.

Then there was Aldaniti, emotionally ridden to victory by Bob Champion in the 1981 Grand National and a combination of the first two letters of David Barron's father's four grandchildren.

Edward Boynton hopes the Barrons may also name a horse Shame Not To, after his dining club - "Another drink? Shame not to."

The horse which particularly takes the column's eye, however, is Carrie Pooter - trained at Maunby and owned by Northallerton solicitor Stephen Woodall, several times a winner this summer.

Though Mr Woodall has not been around to elucidate, Carrie Pooter is the anonymous hero's wife in The Diary of a Nobody, a Victorian comedy novel about a socially ambitious but generally clueless clerk - the Bristow of his day - who lived in Holloway when it had a bit of something about it.

It was written by George Grossmith, who gave up reporting police courts for The Times to pursue a career singing Gilbert and Sullivan, which proved altogether more lucrative. Charles and Carrie Pooter also had a son, who answered (though perhaps not entirely happily) to Lupin. Why Carrie is now pootering about the northern flat, however, is something which so far nobody can explain.

Preparing for tomorrow's FA Cup tie at Easington, Whitby Town sent a couple of spies to last week's match on the east Durham coast - one to check on the football, the other on pre-match pubs. "You have to do things right," says Seasiders' chairman Graham Manser.

The venue now agreed, the column will be renewing friendships in Billy Elliott country. More of that on Tuesday.

Like the rest of us, very likely, Adrian Grayson will have been sitting at home this morning, watching the rain. Had things worked out differently, he and his friends would have been taking the sun in Kenya.

Adrian, familiar in Bedale and beyond, is Paul Grayson's dad. In the summer Paul plays cricket for Essex, in the winter works for Ridley's Brewery - they of ESX Best, Rumpus and Spectacular - in Chelmsford.

It was purely for business reasons, therefore, that 29-year-old Paul was in a pub last Thursday when England selectors' chairman David Graveney rang on his mobile. That afternoon he was being kitted out at Lord's, the following morning on a plane to Nairobi.

On Tuesday, sadly without success, he made his England international debut in the ICC Knockout quarter final.

"I was up at quarter past seven, switched on Sky and there he was in the line-up," says Adrian, himself still playing with poise. "He'd thought he was only on stand-by but Ashley Giles wasn't too good.

"The performance was disappointing, but to play for England is brilliant. You can never take it away from him."

Paul, known on the circuit as PG, isn't the first Bedale cricketer to represent his country, however.

Roger Iddison, Yorkshire's first captain - "short, stout and red-faced" say the historians - toured Australia with a United England X1 in 1862, claiming 103 wickets at 6.59. The Aussies have probably improved a bit since then. George Anderson, strictly from the adjoining village of Aiskew, joined Iddison in Yorkshire's first county side in 1862 and toured Australia a year later.

Had England won on Tuesday, Adrian Grayson and his friends Eddie Roberts and Peter Parlour were on yesterday's 6am flight from Newcastle to watch the semi-final. "It was £1000 for a four- day break but would have been worth every penny," he says.

They got their money back without a problem. It'll do for a rainy day.

THE County cricket championship overseas pro this summer who'd played in 54 one-day internationals but only one Test (Backtrack, October 10) was Stuart Law of Essex. The overseas pro who'd made 20 Test appearances but only once in a one-day international was Matthew Elliott of Glamorgan.

Still with overseas pro's - and the debate over a "foreign" manager for England's football team - Gavin Ledwith in West Rainton seeks the identity of the last Englishman to lead a side to a major trophy - Premiership, FA Cup or League Cup.

The lion roars again on Tuesday.