Battling through a Festival-week crowd at Cheltenham racecourse is a significant challenge for anyone and much more so for anyone who suffers from social anxieties. But Debbie Matthews, who has spent years learning to cope with her mental health issues, will bravely put herself in the heart of that crowd on Wednesday week, partly to promote her drive for racecourses to recognise the needs of people like her and partly to show support for Altior, the star horse who has provided a kind of therapy for her.
It was a trip to Ascot in January to see Altior that brought Matthews some sudden fame within racing, thanks to a series of articles about her in the Racing Post over the following week. Little more than a month later Matthews is gratified by the response. “I’ve got a massive amount of public support,” she says, settling into the empty racecourse cafe at Newbury as the earliest arrivals for Saturday’s race-meeting trickle through the gates. “I think I’ve now got in excess of 1,000 messages, be that emails or through Twitter, from members of the public that are really behind what I’m trying to achieve.
Written by Chris Cook
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/mar/03/debbie-matthews under the title “Debbie Matthews: ‘We want a place we can go and hide for 10 minutes’| Chris Cook”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
