18/12/2025
Conference Week Part 2: Mental well-being for jockeys at the International Conference for the Health, Safety and Welfare of Jockeys ( )
From global sport psychology to the very specific world of horseracing..
At the ICHSWJ conference last week, I had the honor of speaking on behalf of The Hong Kong Jockey Club on mental well-being for jockeys – a group of athletes who carry enormous pressure in a very small, high-risk world.
In my presentation, “Balancing the Saddle: Jockeys’ Challenges in Athletic Identity”, I shared how a trapped and intensely narrow jockey identity, constant weight management, injury risks, and unstable opportunities can combine to make it hard to switch off, ask for help, or imagine life beyond the saddle. The same factors that drive performance can, over time, contribute to burnout, distress, and silence, leading to poorer decision-making, more accidents, and greater threats to well-being.
In the panel discussion with Ciara Losty and Michael Caulfield, sport psychologists from Ireland and the UK respectively, we discussed ways for industry stakeholders to create psychologically informed environments: not only offering individual support, but also changing systems so that speaking up is safe, welfare is embedded in daily practice, and jockeys are seen as people, not just results on a race card.
Grateful to the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities, ICHSWJ, and the wider racing community for opening up these conversations, and for the chance to connect my work on identity, culture, and mental health with the lived realities of jockeys around the world.
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