Tributes flow for trainer Geoff Toft following his death aged 90

Geoff Toft, a "complete one-off" who trained high-class horse Gunner B in the 1970s, has died at the age of 90.

He was based for most of his career in Beverley in East Yorkshire, then a noted training centre, and enjoyed his greatest success with the chestnut bred by Tom Barratt, who joined him as a yearling in 1974.

In three seasons with Toft, racing in the colours of the breeder’s wife Pauline, Gunner B won the Cecil Frail Handicap at Haydock and the Andy Capp Handicap at Redcar. He then stepped up in class and landed the Doonside Cup at Ayr and Diomed Stakes at Epsom.

However, Gunner B was sent to Sir Henry Cecil at the age of five and went on to take the Prince of Wales’s Stakes and Sandown's Eclipse.

Newmarket trainer George Margarson, who broke Gunner B in and worked for Toft for seven years, said: "He was a complete one-off, his horses were his life. He actually lived in one of the stables, he had his TV and everything in there and he was happy.

"He was a bit of a loner but an extrovert as a trainer. I can remember Grand National day in 1975 when we took eight two-year-olds to gallop along the beach at Whitby."

George Margarson (far right) lads the string as Geoff Toft's horses exercise on the beach at WhitbyCredit: George Margarson

Toft had been travelling head lad to Pat Rohan at Malton and trained until 1982.

Margarson added: "He never had a big string. One year we didn’t have a winner for the whole season. But it was the next year that Gunner B, who he picked out in the field when given a choice of two, came along and so did Delayed Action, who won a lot of races for us."

Recently retired trainer Paul D’Arcy worked and rode for Toft, and said: "It's very sad news. I was with him for three or four years and he was a very good trainer.

"He was good to me, he gave me lots of rides and got me going. I learned plenty from him. I learned you have to do as you're told, he was quite a hard taskmaster.

"He was eccentric but he didn't have the sort of gallops you have in other training centres, he was training on the Westwood in Beverley and he used to think outside the box."

The funeral is at 1pm on Friday, November 18 at Woodlands Crematorium in Scarborough, North Yorkshire.