Why dealing with horses is nothing like taking risks with ourselves

Welfare is everywhere these days, and that can't be a bad thing. I remember a time when it was every man for himself (women weren't factored into the equation for quite a while) but now we're all being asked to look after people who drink too much, people who gamble too much, people who eat too much, in fact more or less everybody who does almost any potentially harmful thing to excess.

I can't grumble. I qualify in most of the above categories and I feel touched that somebody cares enough to be concerned. Luckily I'm not an excessive character by nature, so the damage to my life – thus far, at least – extends mostly to having to buy cheaper wine and bigger trousers, rather than having to sell the house and go into rehab.

If I'm honest, I'm slightly unsure that a lot of the initiatives to encourage people to bet responsibly and drink in moderation have a measurable impact on the obsessive and the compulsive, but there's nothing wrong with any initiative that encourages the rest of us – the borderline cases and the mildly vulnerable, which probably accounts for most of my friends in racing – to take a pull when our baser instincts are telling us to kick on regardless.