'Every day for a year I thought about doing away with myself - I'd given up'

It is chilling to comprehend – in a parallel universe without admission and then treatment – what Kevin Sexton might alternatively have been doing during the County Hurdle last month.

Sleeping, most probably, given he used to spend most of his days in bed. He might have watched the replay some time in the middle of the night when he awoke from his slumber, wondering what might have been had he sought help when he needed it most.

Fortunately, Sexton saw the light in the nick of time. The tunnel was long and dark, seemingly never-ending with each day rolling into the next, but he got there. He is now a Cheltenham Festival- and Grade 1-winning jockey and has high hopes of breaking his duck at the Punchestown festival next week too, a meeting he calls his favourite. Yet much more importantly than any of that, he is happy – contentment is a beautiful place to be when you find it.