You don't suffer from anxiety? What's wrong with you?

I was disappointed last night that Loving Pearl finished last, but not down-hearted.  I was fairly despondent two thirds or three quarters of the way through the race as she was struggling, but I was relieved to see that she didn't just pack it in up the final hill but kept stretching out to and past the post.  She's bred to stay two miles and, the way she kept going despite having been under pressure for most of the race, suggests that she should indeed do that.  If she is indeed a proper stayer, then there was nothing in yesterday's run to say that she won't make the grade over farther.  Even leaving the distance aside, too, she will come on for the run anyway.

That's been our only runner this week.  I think we'll just have one next week too, Roy at Brighton on Tuesday, but then I think we'll be busier thereafter.  It's possible to envisage us running six horses during the following week, which is a thought both exciting and daunting at the same time.  That week will, of course, be Derby Week, while this week is Mental Health Awareness Week.  One of the features of Mental Health Awareness Week has been a series of announcements about the percentage of people in each of racing's category who have suffered at some point in the past year or so from stress, anxiety or depression.

With jockeys I think the percentage was in the low 80s; with trainers it was around 75%.  That doesn't make sense, though, does it?  How can the trainers' percentage be as low as 75%.  Surely it should be 100%?  A trainer would have to have something wrong with him not to suffer from anxiety every time he has a runner.  Every morning, in fact.  Unless you are totally indifferent to the safety of your horses and riders, every morning is a source of anxiety.  You can't really start to relax and enjoy the day until all the horses are worked and nothing has gone wrong, nobody (horse or human) has been injured.  I know that, hopefully, the days when things go wrong make up only a small minority of the days, but any day could be one of them.  Anxiety is as much part of the job as a yolk is part of an egg.

If there is something to worry about, it is that 25% of trainers don't suffer from anxiety.  I imagine that if you have a lot of runners, you probably get a bit gung-ho about it, and develop a skin so thick that the reverses - and I don't just mean that inevitable occasional injury, but the frequent disappointments too - are no longer something to be feared.  But time doesn't diminish the anxiety - in fact, I'd say that it increases it, because the longer you have been doing it, the more aware you become of the potential for things going wrong.  Anxiety?  Just the thought of having six runners in one week is catalyst enough!