'A bollocking from a trainer can be so demoralising - I felt destroyed'

It's a hard thing to look into a man's eyes as he recounts the memory of his darkest day on this earth; to listen to the harrowing tale of how he tried to kill himself with alcohol and pills when the weight of his own life became too much to bear. Even harder in some ways, to hear that he didn't feel able to share the torment with those who might have been able to help him past the bleak days and restore his faith in the worth of simply being alive.

Through good fortune, an act of God, call it what you will, Nathan Horrocks survived his attempt at suicide. He vomited up the booze and the tablets and lived to tell the tale, but the feelings of isolation and desperation, of loneliness and worthlessness, still sit heavily on every word. Even when he sought help in the aftermath, the former jockey was reluctant to go through the very channels the sport had created to offer ease to such a troubled soul.

"I didn't contact any governing body or Racing Welfare or the PJA because I was too embarrassed by what I was going through and I didn't want to admit it," the 46-year-old remembers. "I hid it from everybody. There was a stigma attached to mental health and depression so I went online and found somebody who could help, and I find that even now it's still hard to admit to, to say out loud.