Bryan Cooper’s decision to quit the saddle at the age of just 30 was a shock to many, but also serves as a timely reminder of what National Hunt jockeys have to face up to every time they go out on the track.

Cooper, a Kerry native, rode 36 Grade 1 winners during his career, but called it quits officially last Friday when he released a statement on his social channels.

An interview in Saturday’s edition of The Irish Times revealed his reasoning, which detailed how a number of injuries had affected his psychology riding horses over jumps, and that he felt he couldn’t effectively do his job properly any more.

The profession of a jumps jockey has to be one of the most exciting and treacherous in sport. The old adage about the only job that requires an ambulance to drive behind you rings true.

During his career, Cooper suffered a particularly bad leg break, a collapsed lung and liver laceration, a broken arm and broken pelvis, just to name a few of his setbacks.

The physical pain is one thing, but the mental effect is another, and was obviously too much for him.

You’d wonder how many other National Hunt riders are going through mental anguish just to keep going. And yet for the majority of them, they will never get close to what Cooper achieved in the saddle – most notably winning the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 2016, which was one of nine Cheltenham Festival wins for him.

Research

The Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board commissioned research in 2019/2020 into the prevalence of mental health issues among jockeys, and found that injured jockeys were 46 times more likely to meet the criteria for depression than non-injured jockeys and reported higher levels of dissatisfaction associated with meeting the criteria for distress and generalised anxiety.

Off the back of this research, the Irish Injured Jockeys Fund together with IHRB brought out a special app called Leafyard, which provides all professional and amateur jockeys with tools for mental health support.

The app seemed to be well received by jockeys, with a strong uptake and usage rate when it was introduced.

Meanwhile, the Irish flat turf season got underway at the Curragh on Saturday and after racing, Aidan O’Brien worked a number of his leading classic contenders this season, including Auguste Rodin and Little Big Bear.

Both of those colts have the potential to set the season alight this year, having putting up impressive displays to secure Group 1 victories last term.