Jockeys, too, suffer from mental health, stress, suicidal tendencies
BALTIMORE—EURICO Rosa da Silva was in a dark place. On the track, the jockey in his early 30s was winning races and making money. At home, he was fighting suicidal thoughts every day.
“I got to the point where I have no more choice but to go for help,” he recalled recently. “I went because if I have no choice, I would kill myself.”
Da Silva got help in 2006 and rode for more than a decade before retiring. He’s one of the lucky ones.
Earlier this year, horse racing was stunned by the suicides less than six weeks apart of two young jockeys, 23-year-old Avery Whisman and 29-year-old Alex Canchari.
A friend of Whisman’s, Triple Crown-winning rider Mike Smith, said he has seen similar tragedies over three decades.
“I know several riders that I knew very well committed suicide when it was all said and done,” Smith said. “This is not all of a sudden just happening. It’s been going on. You just never heard of it.”
The dangers of riding thoroughbreds at high speed add up to an average of two jockeys dying from racing each year and 60 being paralyzed, according to one industry veteran, citing data dating to 1940.
Combine that with criticism from owners, trainers and bettors and the need to maintain the low weight necessary to establish a career, and jockeys have been quietly suffering for as long as they have been riding horses.
While jockeys interviewed for this story worry that racing has lagged behind other sports in accepting the importance of their mental health on the job, there is hope that renewed conversation about it prompts real change.
“This needs to be addressed,” jockey Trevor Mccarthy said. “We take a lot of beatings mentally and physically. With the mental and physical state, when you mix both of them together, it can be a recipe for disaster. Look, there’s proof of it, right? We lost two guys.”
Mccarthy last year, like da Silva before him, sought help before it was too late. His father was a jockey, as is his father-in-law and his wife, Katie Davis Mccarthy. They are all used to the ups and downs of the job, from the broken pelvis and collarbone from his spill during a race in November to the uncertain hold on a ride.
A particularly rough summer, including flying up and down the East Coast to ride, took a toll on Mccarthy, who at 118 pounds could feel his diet and lack of calories affect his work. He wanted to quit.
“I was going absolutely nuts, and my body couldn’t handle it,” Mccarthy said. “You’re constantly going through mind games. And I think a lot of guys get caught up in that with the weight and the mind game of not doing good or thinking they’re not good enough.”
His wife made him promise to talk to a sports therapist. Mccarthy did so for months, learning how to find a better work-life balance that has helped him win 28 races already this year.
Now 47, da Silva was named Canada’s best jockey seven times and is the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame.
“In 30 years of riding horses, I can say to you that I never heard anybody talk about the emotional pain, never talked about going for help,” said da Silva, who’s now a mental health coach and spoke Tuesday at the first jockey mental health symposium in Lexington, Kentucky. “I approached many jockeys that I feel like they need help, and many times I said, ‘Go for help.’ I motivate them to go for help. They just listen, but they don’t really want to talk about.”
Dr. Ciara Losty of South
East Technological University in Waterford, Ireland, pointed out that jockeys have an “underdeveloped sense of self inside of their sport,” compared to team sport or Olympic athletes who are less likely to burn out because they seek out other activities. She said jockeys can also be less familiar with mental health topics because of low literacy levels and lack the support system of a coach or coaching staff.
“Maintaining a low weight and obviously disordered eating is a big part of it,” said Losty, who coauthored a 2018 study on jockey mental health. “Being a jockey, you have a risk of serious injuries, and if you’ve had a serious injury the fear of re-injury when you engage or get back up on the horse again may impact your performance or lead you to some kind of distress.”
Dr. Lewis King, now at Ireland’s Technological University of the Shannon, did his doctoral degree in 2021 on the subject because he wanted to explore what makes jockeys susceptible to mental health problems and what stopped them from seeking help. In talking to 84 jockeys in Ireland, he said, he found 61 percent met the threshold for adverse alcohol use, 35 percent for depression and 27 percent for anxiety.
King’s research showed that despite nearly 80 percent of jockeys having at least one common mental health disorder, only a third saw a professional. He said most feared losing their jobs.