Frightening near miss as Storm Doris brings the roof down at McCain's yard

Even if they never win another race between them, five inmates at Donald McCain's yard in Cheshire can probably be counted the luckiest horses in training.

They each escaped unhurt as raging Storm Doris caused a huge branch to crash through the roof of their barn, near the gallop at Bankhouse Stables in Cholmondeley.

"We'd had a couple of trees down around the place in the morning and Sian and I had just walked up there because a panel had blown off," McCain recalled on Friday.

"As we stood there, a great big branch came straight through the roof of the barn in front of us. It was frightening but it landed right in the middle of the barn.

"The horses were stood at the back of their boxes and it was a bit of a job getting them out, but the lads were great, we jumped on it quick - we had to take doors off hinges to get them out but we managed it, even though it was still blowing a gale. The horses were a bit shocked but they were very, very lucky."

McCain, who has runners at Chepstow and Newcastle on Saturday, posted a photo of the damaged barn on Twitter.

But he said: "The picture doesn't quite do it justice because we'd got the horses out by then and we'd sawn a few branches off to do it."