Sam Loxton aiming to build on Rose's achievements at Somerset base

It came as sweet news this week when Sam Loxton told me he was carrying on training point-to-pointers at the livery yard created by his wife Rose.

A double training champion of the sport, Rose died in August at the age of 59, taking with her those special skills which make some people naturally brilliant when it comes to horses. She had honed that talent in her homeland of Ireland, then joined Paul Nicholls and became one of his trusted senior staff before quietly establishing a training role of her own.

Sam comes from a farming background, but was an ever-present with Rose at the races, and as her successes mounted he gave up working as a tree surgeon and joined her full-time at the yard created at their Somerset home. When Rose was badly injured in a gallops incident and then, soon after, diagnosed with cancer, he kept the yard running. He did a good job judging by the results, but the death of a beloved wife could have left many a husband in no man's land.