It’s a tough industry, even with the incredible days and Group One winners; it’s hard to make the business work. Covid wasn’t the kindest to us, we lost some clients, and you start to think about life a bit more.

Deciding to retire was a big move.

We had a fantastic final year and Polly Pott won the Group Two May Hill Stakes at Doncaster. My wife drove her up there, her owners were from Doncaster, so it was quite apt she was our last big winner, and at a starting price of 40/1! It was emotional stuff.

Training is results-driven; you could look me up on social media and see I’ve had no winners for four months and there’s a “cold list” of trainers in the Racing Post.

If things aren’t going well, you rush things, you don’t make good decisions, such as where your horses should run.

It’s the If you’re not in the right frame of mind, it affects the workforce and the atmosphere in a yard, and you’re looking after everything from the staff, to paying the water bill, to maintaining your gallops.

I’m fortunate that I can talk to my family, but it’s still difficult.

It's the same in any competitive sport; everyone’s frightened of showing any weakness, frightened of failure, of being seen as a failure, and that someone is going to make the most of it, getting your clients and horses.

Everyone is under relentless pressure; you’re going out to dinner, you have a runner in the 8.30pm, he’s the favourite and he runs badly and the owners aren’t happy and you shouldn’t be worrying about it, but you are.

The catalyst for the Trainer Support Network was a trainer on the gallops who broke down in tears.

His finances weren’t great, he’d had a terrible year and had a complete wobble.

I realised we needed a support network; stable staff have Racing Welfare and other resources, trainers had nothing and it’s our responsibility to keep the show on the road.

That man is now in a good place; but if he’d had the support earlier he might also still be training.

We felt that we wanted to do something proactive, before someone else had a wobble.

We’re supported by the National Trainers Federation (NTF) and the Racehorse Trainers Benevolent Fund, which is funded by a small percentage of foreign prize money.