Resilient racing folk keep on keeping on whatever life brings

Resilience is one of those qualities that is universally admired, chiefly because it is required when life isn't going so well. No-one relishes being given the chance to demonstrate their resilience; we'd all prefer to have it taken on trust.

As a sport, racing offers innumerable opportunities to give the old resilience a workout. Words can never hurt you but the sticks and stones of life, the slings and arrows of fortune, can bring a man to his knees before he summons the grit to stand up again. Owners on the receiving end of one of those phone calls concerning injury to their horse and its consequent absence, or worse, know what it is to show a brave face and regroup. Keep cool and carry on.

Jockeys, too. Whether it's a jump jockey lying on his hospital bed, staring at the ceiling and counting backwards from the Cheltenham Festival, or a Flat jockey whose phone has ceased to ring with its former reassuring regularity, the finger of fashion pointing elsewhere, moving on, you rarely hear complaints. What you hear is resilience, the intention to overcome pain and discomfort, to overcome rejection. Self-pity is not in the jockeys' lexicon.