Tributes have been paid following the death of island-based millionaire racehorse owner Alan Potts.

Mr Potts died last week at the age of 80, three months after the death of his wife Ann with whom he co-owned Sizing John, the winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup in March.

Business tycoon Mr Potts founded the MMD mining equipment company based in Laxey.

An engineer who grew up in Yorkshire, he invented a machine that sized rock as it was mined and made a fortune after setting up MMD 40 years ago. Many of his horses had Sizing in their names.

A passionate jump racing man, Mr Potts was one of the leading owners in Ireland and Britain. His red, green and yellow colours were among the most familiar in National Hunt racing over the past dozen seasons.

Until the 2016-17 season, Potts’s runners were trained almost exclusively in Ireland. But last August, more than a dozen of their horses movedto join trainer Colin Tizzard in Dorset.

Meanwhile, Sizing John, which went on to complete a unique treble at the spring festival meetings this year with victories in the Gold Cups at Leopardstown, Cheltenham and Punchestown, was moved to Jessica Harrington’s yard in Co Kildare.

Jessica Harrington told the Racing Post: ’It’s very sad. I talked to Alan last week. He was all booked to go to Cheltenham at the weekend. What an unbelievable time we had together.’

Joe Tizzard, Colin’s son and assistant, said: ’We’d got to know Alan and his family very well in the last 12 months and we had some very special times, especially at Aintree and Punchestown last year. All our thoughts are with his family.’

The Potts’s daughter, Julie, regularly accompanied her parents to the races.

Mr Potts hit the headlines in the island earlier this year when he built a helipad in the grounds of his Corony Bridge estate in Maughold without planning permission. He subsequently applied for retrospective approval, stating that his wife relied on air charter travel due to her health problems and need for medical treatment.