Signing off with a message of hope from the heart

I decided to give myself the sack this week. I’ve done it many times in many jobs in the past; sometimes through a sense of paranoia, sometimes through a herculean lack of self-belief, but more often than not because I wasn’t feeling I was performing to the best of my abilities. So I thought I’d look into it:

8 Ways to Stop Self-Sabotaging Your Success
Deep Patel – Entrepreneur.com

1 Understand self-sabotage. Many of us are engaged in self-destructive behaviours that have become habits.
2 Recognise self-sabotaging habits.
3 Identify root causes.
4 Take time for self-reflection.
5 Find your inner positive voice.
6 Change your pattern of behaviour.
7 Make small, meaningful changes.
8 Set goals and make plans.

It came as a shock to realise that in the last 12 months I’ve done all of these things – and probably more.

Things are in flux at Chris Waller Racing right now. There are still plenty of runners and many of them are back-end two-year-olds, campaigned at the season’s embers like they are back home – to give them experience, to see if they’re going the right way and yes, to see if they’re not only ‘backwards’ but to confirm that nagging doubt that they’re absolutely useless.

So it’s hardly the hurly burly of the summer down under when I started this column, strapping Yes Yes Yes to victory in the Grade 2 Todman Stakes before Shraaoh completed the first leg of his inevitable Sydney Cup/Melbourne Cup double which will be completed in November.

They’re back in now, readying for the season ahead: Yes Yes Yes was at the front of the market for the Golden Slipper back in March but undone by the plum draw he received at Randwick – the negative being that the $3.5 million showpiece juvenile contest is run at Rosehill.

Shraaoh, plucked from relative obscurity as a 95-rated stayer back home, arrived in Australia at the same time as I did but has pulled up far more trees than myself along with more than $1 million in prize-money. I may have mentioned it before, but I love Shraaoh.

Another to return to the fold is Hugh Bowman who, to a mere stable hand in Rosehill, seemed to completely disappear after Winx’s final victory at Randwick.

I sent him a text to find out if everything was all right and he assured me that it was. He just needed to get away, something I could easily relate to, albeit for a completely different reason.

He became ‘The bloke who rode Winx’, and where do you go from there? Only Neil Armstrong can answer that, but Hughie would need a séance to find out and I’m not sure if Apollo 11 gave Neil the same sort of feel of a work morning.

Chris Waller returned this week too after taking in Royal Ascot, with a trip to Ballydoyle thrown in for good measure. A typical racehorse trainer is Chris; we’d seen the photos of him in the royal carriage back home and everyone in the tower wanted to know what the best thing about his trip was.

He just answered: “Spending the morning with Aidan was pretty special. An amazing experience. The Queen was lovely too.”

His flight had only landed at midnight, but he was back in the tower and ready to oversee our first lot as they came out on to the track at 4.30am.

I often note the comments from the work-riders as they make their way past the tower on work mornings. As Bowman went past I just shouted: “All good with him?” to which he replied: “Lovely horse, lacking a bit of confidence though!”

“Why, does he need company?” I responded.

“I was talking about me!”

He got better as the morning went on though. After third lot he reported that at no point did he think he would fall off. Positive stuff. Our big guns are readying themselves for the beginning of spring in Australia.

I watch and monitor racing back home more than I ever used to. Probably because it used to enter my brain through osmosis when I was an assistant trainer – travelling and chatting with so many racing professionals as I once did.

Now I have to set aside time to ensure that I don’t lose touch.

One set of professionals who I seldom engaged with were the clerks of the courses though, and Doncaster’s Roderick Duncan went public this week concerning the effects his role has had on his mental health.

My first thought was one of admiration, ‘Bloody good on him!’, while I’ll admit that I also winced – I can’t imagine the turmoil that must have brought him to such a stage where he decided that he should front up to it. I can’t imagine it because I’ve lived it for almost three years. It’s some battle.

On October 10, 2016, Graham Lee came forward on the front page of this very paper and admitted to his struggles with mental health and that gave me enormous help – only a month earlier I’d lost someone very special to suicide.

I almost completely fell apart.

Graham’s article gave me the strength to go racing once again. If he hadn’t been riding our three runners I wouldn’t have gone.

I can’t recall who they were but I know they all lost, but as we drifted away from a large group of our owners to leg Graham up on the first, I told him how much I admired his courage and of my own situation.

I also recall an absurd thought of what the punters overlooking the paddock must have been thinking: “Bloody hell, Channon’s lad and Graham Lee must have a few quid on, they’re hugging in the paddock.”

Mike Cattermole, the man who suggested I offer my services to the Racing Post when I arrived in Australia, then came up and interviewed me on ATR to ask me about our chances and then about the book I’d written that had been published less than four weeks earlier.

I was a vacant individual.

I painted on the smile and talked bollocks about horses running in races that I hadn’t looked at and had no interest in and thanked him for his compliments on my literary efforts.

The truth is, I’d self-medicated a strict personal dietary regime that involved drinking and smoking myself into oblivion throughout September and October 2016, one that carried on for a fair while after. But who would have noticed in the racing game?

They just see their housekeeping money going down the drain, their horses losing, their strike-rates falling or their rides drying up.

The knock-on effects of constant failures lead to so many issues that don’t bear thinking about in the grand scheme of things to those outside the industry. If you’re in it, though, it can consume you.

My own personal battle is not one with depression, more of shame. The shame that I perceived that horses I was partly responsible for weren’t running fast enough round a field. Nothing else mattered.

It never occurred to me that she had worries, she had issues and she had problems that far outweighed the importance of animals running for our own amusement.

She had a job in the real world.

We shouldn’t insulate ourselves in our obsessions.

I certainly won’t do it again – although it’s too late to make amends. This is my last bit for a bit. I’ve just sacked myself from the Racing Post.

Mainly because, ‘I’ve found my inner positive voice’ and there’s bugger all of interest to tell you about right now.

I’m off to England for a holiday to see Grandma and meet people with golf, drink, laughter and love on the agenda for most of August.

I’ve also written a book that needs knocking into shape. It’s about loss and (hopefully) hope.

I may be back in September. After all, Melbourne Cup glory awaits!
Be kind to one another.

Michael. X

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