When they do, those carers, parents, families and friends are often placed under great strain – as are the voluntary and charitable sectors, whose role in providing care is irreplaceable.Look at those challenges in more detail Take schools, for example. Some have multiple disabilities – and old age usually brings disability with it Many, too, have no carers. At the outset, Stewart had been in the privileged position of being able to take out a lease on the lavish Moulton Paddocks in Newmarket. Among his owners was Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum of Dubai and his brother, Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum. Such patronage was to be enduring, Sheikh Hamdan retaining horses with Stewart in every season.At the end of 1986 Stewart moved to larger premises at Clarehaven Stables on Bury Road in Newmarket and was to enjoy his most successful season.

Mtoto was on the team and the way he bloomed would have been richly savoured by his trainer. As a young horse Mtoto endured a leg injury and brittle feet. Time, allied to Stewart’s ability to bring a high-class horse to a peak when it mattered, was to prove an admirable healer.Victories flowed: the Brigadier Gerard Stakes at Sandown and the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Newmarket, before a return to Sandown for that scrap with Reference Point, who was to go on and win the St Leger. Mtoto returned as a five-year-old arguably even better, but not before Daarkom (Ebor Handicap) and Waajib (Prix du Rond Point and Schweppes Golden Mile) had contributed to Stewart’s finishing position of sixth in the 1987 British trainers’ championship. He managed a place higher in 1988, when Mtoto, ridden by the South African champion Michael Roberts for Sheikh Ahmed Al Maktoum, lost only one of his five races when beaten by a neck in Paris by Tony Bin. Waajib also added further lustre with wins in the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot and the Diomed Stakes at the Derby meeting.The glow lingered over the next two seasons. Braashee won the Yorkshire Cup and Hamdan Al Maktoum’s colt Al Maheb the Doncaster Cup and Northumberland Plate, the latter one of six wins from seven rides for Willie Carson that day.

For good measure, Carson flew to Ireland that evening and won the Irish Derby the following afternoon on the Sheikh’s filly Salsabil.It was not until 1994 that Stewart next came across a horse to secure headlines when Wagon Master won the Princess of Wales’s Stakes and Cumberland Lodge Stakes. Then in 2000 came the last of his star performers, Mutamam, bringing back from North America a win in the Grade One Canadian International, a leg of the World Series.Stewart had more than his share of success in major handicaps as well, Daarkom’s Ebor win, supplemented by Maylane winning the Tote Gold Trophy, Saleel the Melrose Handicap and, at Royal Ascot this June, Mandobi in the Britannia Handicap.By then Stewart’s fight with cancer was well known in racing circles. It had first come to light towards the end of 2002 when it was suggested that he might hand over the reins to a temporary assistant, but he recovered sufficiently and was in hearty form in the winner’s enclosure when welcoming Mandobi, his first win at Ascot since Mtoto 16 years earlier.To outsiders, and not that Stewart would have been perturbed at the thought, his standing among the betting-shop clientele was often different from that among the ranks of trainers in Newmarket. Some are born disabled, but most acquire disabilities later in life.