TUCSON, Ariz. – The suicides of two U.S. jockeys earlier this year has led riders to begin speaking out about the stresses of their jobs and the mental-health issues they are facing, leading racing jurisdictions worldwide to seek therapeutic options for jockeys, panelists at the Global Symposium on Racing said on Wednesday.   The panel included two current riders, Trevor McCarthy and Kyle Frey, and was moderated by a former jockey, Donna Barton Brothers, leading to an intimate discussion of the frequent substance abuse and mental-health problems among riders that often results from non-stop work schedules, the physical and emotional demands of the sport, and the pressure of appearing calm and collected at all times in order to maintain their relationships with the people who hire them, owners and trainers. “When all those triggers come together, it’s very easy to send you over the top,” said McCarthy, who rides primarily in New York now and is married to another jockey, Katie Davis. Jockey mental health surged to the fore of a sport confronting multiple problems earlier this year when Avery Whisman and Alex Canchari, two young riders, committed suicide within six weeks of each other. Both riders had been away from the sport at the time of their deaths after dealing with injuries and other problems. Frey recently returned to riding in Southern California after a four-month “mental break,” which he said was triggered by a debilitating panic attack, his first ever. He was candid about his struggles with substance abuse and the difficulties he has faced maintaining sobriety and a clear head, but he said that help he has received from Alcoholics Anonymous, the Winners Foundation, and the local racetrack chaplaincy have been critical to his ongoing recovery efforts.  “The key is to stick around, to stay consistent with the whole thing,” Frey said. Nathan Horrocks, a former jockey who wrote and directed a short film about a jockey’s mental-health struggles, said that the largest hurdle for riders is admitting that they are struggling mentally. Two of Horrocks’s friends, including a jumps jockey in Britain named James Bank, committed suicide. Horrocks survived his own suicide attempt. “We were both going through the same thing, but we weren’t man enough to talk about it,” Horrocks said. Dr. Ciara Losty, a sports psychologist who has been working on mental-health issues in Ireland for the past decade, supported Horrocks’s contention that jockeys are often unwilling to admit that they need help. “There’s a lot of resistance, there’s a stigma, there’s a machismo,” Losty said. Losty said that Ireland has made huge strides in “changing the culture” among riders in the country by creating educational programs and providing therapeutic resources to riders. But she said that the path is difficult, and that what works in one country might not work in another, citing “cultural nuances.” Even seemingly simple things might not be so simple. Duncan Patterson, the chairman of the Delaware Thoroughbred Racing Commission, told the panel from the audience that the commission contracted with a sports psychiatrist this year to provide services to jockeys. Only one rider sought help, Duncan said. He asked the panel if he should introduce her to the jockey colony in, for example, the jocks’ room. Losty said that might not work, considering the competitive relationships among riders. Frey told Patterson that riders are incredibly reluctant to show weakness in front of their fellow competitors, citing how he viewed the Winners’ Circle trailer on the backstretch of California racetracks. :: Bet the races with a $200 First Deposit Match + FREE All Access PPs! Join DRF Bets. “It’s that walk of shame to the trailer, who’s going to see me, who’s going to know that I’m getting this help,” Frey said. McCarthy said that most jockeys only think about the large number of downsides of seeking help. “No jockey is going to [take time off],” McCarthy said. “There’s the big fear of losing business, there’s losing momentum, there are the rumors when you come back.” The pressures of being disciplined 24/7/365 got so bad, McCarthy said, that he once suffered a compound fracture of his wrist, looked down at the injury, and felt a smile break out on his face. “I said, ‘Holy shit. I’m going to have a day off,’ ” McCarthy said. “My agent was pissed. And I was happier than a pig in poop.” Both McCarthy and Frey said that social media has made the pressures of their jobs far worse. Barton Brothers said that jockeys are asked by their agents and racing publicists “to get their faces out there,” so they often start social-media accounts without being aware how toxic the sites are and how they instantly become targets for anonymous rage and conspiracy theories. McCarthy said that a fellow jockey, Oisin Murphy, recently posted numbers on the amount of abusive messages he had received on social media, leading McCarthy to respond with support, which led to McCarthy being attacked as well. “I’ve been off social media for four months, and that’s been a game-changer,” McCarthy said. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.