The trainer of a winner is mourning the loss of a horse she called ‘my best friend’. Grey mare Sine Nomine captured at last year’s .

She completed a famous double for her trainer Fiona Needham, who had won the race as an amateur jockey 22 years earlier on her father’s Last Option. Under Needham, who trains a small team of horses as well as performing the role of clerk of the course at Catterick, Sine Nomine was a prolific point-to-point winner and won four hunter chases.

She recorded her best and most recent victory when she defeated the JP McManus-owned favourite Its On The Line by three quarters of a length last March, under regular rider John Dawson.

The nine-year-old had been unable to add to her score this season and was pulled up at the Cheltenham Festival, after being kicked at the start.

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She last ran at Stratford at the end of March in a handicap chase where she finished last of three, beaten under five lengths, but subsequently fell ill.

Needham told , “"She effectively got a thrombosis and then got , and it was all very horrible. The vets were brilliant and tried their hardest. Her last run was actually all right and then just a few days later this happened.

"They thought she wouldn’t make it through Saturday night, but she picked up again and was eating carrots before taking a turn for the worse on Sunday. She was a battler. I know she was a good horse, but she was such a character too.

"We’re such a small yard and I rode her out every day and she was a bit spoiled. It’s horrible. She was so full of life. I don’t have any children – my horses are my children and she was my best friend."