KNOWING how much Colin McBratney cares for even the less successful horses that pass through his hands, finding them good homes if at all possible, we can just imagine how he felt last weekend when he discovered that Marito had suffered a fatal injury.

Since arriving at Colin’s Raffery yard in the summer of 2014, the German-bred gelding won three point-to-points and a hunters’ chase, but it was his placed efforts in the iconic Cheltenham Festival hunters’ chases that endeared him to his connections and the public.