An island businesswoman has paid tribute to well-known racing trainer David ’Dandy ’ Nicholls.

Optimus Fiduciaries director Maureen Schofield said she was saddened by the death at the weekend of Mr Nicholls, 61.

Nicknamed the ’Sprint King’ Mr Nicholls was based at Tall Trees Stables near Thirsk in North Yorkshire.

Mrs Schofield and her husband Mark, who is managing director of the Castletown firm, owned racehorses including Mister Manannan and Majestic Manannan which were trained for flat racing by former jockey Mr Nicholls.

Mister Manannan had competed at Goodwood, Royal Ascot and Dubai while with Mr Nicholls.

Maureen said she and her husband counted themselves as friends with Mr Nicholls.

She told Business News: ’He had a heart of gold, there was no edge to him whatsoever. What you saw was what you got.

’This has come as a big shock to both of us and people in the racing world. He was such a special trainer. As well as us being owners and he being the trainer we were also good friends. This is very very sad. Our thoughts are with his family.’

Maureen added that he was ’full of fun’ and ’always keen to have a laugh and a joke.’

She added: ’I called him the ’little big man. He was a character and a great Yorkshireman.’

She and her husband had known Mr Nicholls for several years. They picked Mr Nicholls to train their horses because of Maureen’s original North Yorkshire links.

Tributes were led by Mr Nicholls’s son Adrian after announcing the death of his father. Mr Nicholls, a former jockey, had an illustrious training career winning all the major sprint handicaps including the Ayr Gold Cup.

Nicknamed the ’Sprint King’, Mr Nicholls was responsible for such luminaries as Continent, Bahamian Pirate, Regal Parade and Ya Malak, who created his own piece of history when ridden by Nicholls’ wife, Alex Greaves, as she became the first female rider to win a Group One in Britain, dead-heating with Coastal Bluff at York in 1997.

Born in Pudsey, West Yorkshire, Mr Nicholls - who picked up his ’Dandy’ tag from his early days in the saddle after the actress Dandy Nichols, who played Alf Garnet’s long-suffering wife Else in Till Death Us Do Part - began training in 1992, but announced his retirement in March this year.

Mr Nicholls went out with a winner as stable star Sovereign Debt landed a valuable race in Qatar at the end of February and only last Saturday won the Diomed Stakes at Epsom for his new trainer Ruth Carr. His son, Adrian, said he passed away in his sleep at home on Sunday morning. ’He’d been battling a few problems of late. Everybody knows in racing what he did. He was a very good jockey and an even better trainer and probably an even better dad. The yard would be full of horses, not just good ones. Dad was being sent horses and improving them hand over fist and he had a great team round him at home.’

He said that even on Saturday ’he was watching the racing and saw Sovereign Debt win at Epsom.’

Maureen Schofield said they planned to meet up with Mr Nicholls and his wife Alex at the Ayr Gold Cup later this year. She added Mister Manannan was now carving out a new career in Sweden with new owners. And Majestic Manannan has a new ’career’ riding out in a scheme with children in North Yorkshire. In the meantime she her husband have racehorses with another Yorkshire trainer Tim Easterby. They include hurdler What A Game who has already won at Cartmel.