Seeing light at the end of a tunnel can be difficult for those suffering with mental health issues but after overcoming two suicide attempts groom Mike Couchman admits it would be ‘amazing’ if Hermes Allen could secure him a first Cheltenham Festival winner on Wednesday.
Already filled with immense satisfaction at the chance to lead his equine pride and joy around the hallowed paddock of Prestbury Park for the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle, the 53 year old knows that his own attendance at the meeting is a personal victory in itself.
Had it not been for his late dad Vernon, and mum Ivy, finding him collapsed on their kitchen floor almost 20 years ago after taking an overdose, and the authorities in Cornwall rushing him to hospital on Christmas Eve in 2014, life could have been very different for Couchman.
With his darkest days now firmly behind him the former betting shop manager, who has worked for trainer Paul Nicholls since July, is now looking towards a bright future away from the track with his fiancé Clare Clark, but before that he hopes he can celebrate a victory he has long dreamed of.
Couchman said: “I’ve never led in a Festival winner but hopefully Hermes Allen can change that. The closest I have come to a winner at the Festival was when I was working at Nicky Henderson’s and I led up Trabolgan the Champion Bumper when he finished second to Liberman of Martin Pipe’s.
“I also did Lamanver Pippin while I was at Colin Tizzard’s who finished third in the National Hunt Chase with Will Biddick, while I also led Slate House in after he won at the November meeting and we got a fair few claps and cheers.
“It was brilliant when Hermes Allen won his Grade Two at Cheltenham earlier this season (the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle at The November Meeting). Bringing him back down the chute everyone was cheering, but to do it at the Festival would be something else.
“I’ve got the utmost respect for the Irish horses but Paul (Nicholls, trainer) is never afraid to take anyone on. If he was to go and do it, it would be amazing.”
Having started working in racing at the age of 19 back in 1989 for Merrick Francis, it was not until 2004 when Couchman had decided to step away from the sport full time that he hit rock bottom as financial pressures started to take their toll on him.
He added: “I’ve suffered with mental illness on and off for the last 20 years to the point where I have done suicide attempts.
“The first one was when my two kids, with an ex-partner of mine, were growing up.
“Money back in the day wasn’t great in racing and I was riding out in the mornings at various yards and work evening shifts for the Post Office and it just got to me as I struggled to provide what I wanted for them.
“I was living between Epsom, where my kids were, and my mum and dad’s near Guildford. One night my mum and dad found me in their kitchen collapsed on the floor through taking paracetamol and stuff.
“The amount of toxins I had in my body the doctors said I shouldn’t have lived and I spent 17 hours on a drip in hospital in Guildford as they battled to save me which I will always be thankful for.”
With the help and support of family and friends, and several months of counselling, Couchman managed to get his life back on course with a move down to Cornwall where he spent a spell working as a betting shop manager in Falmouth.
However, with his marriage to his ex-wife beginning to unravel, Couchman attempted to take his life again on Christmas Eve in 2014, an incident he now describes acted as a real ‘wake-up call’ to getting his life back on track.
He added: “I knew my marriage was going wrong and I couldn’t cope with anything. I never got on with her family as they wanted her to marry someone Cornish and not someone from Surrey.
“I had picked her up from where she worked and we had a big bust up, with the kids she had from a previous relationship and our daughter in the car.
“I dropped them off and I went to a quiet place in Truro and I had the tablets on me and I had the Christmas drink in the back of the car.
“I still, to this day, don’t know how I managed to do the 10 minute drive back home. There was a policeman who was waiting for me at home with my now ex-wife and I simply fell on the floor when I got back in.
“They rushed me to hospital. They later found six empty Budweiser bottles and empty packets of paracetamol from what I had taken that night
“That was a big wake-up call as I could have killed someone that night. I could have never lived with myself had I done that.”
Since then Couchman, who has also spent spells with the likes of Gary Moore and Harry Fry along with a stint working as a stalls handler, has largely kept on top of his mental health battle, thanks largely to the support he has received from his fiancé Clare Clark.
He added: “My fiancé has been absolutely brilliant. She has rallied around me and I’ve been in a good place. On March 13th, the day before the Festival starts, we will have been together for eight years.
“We met through a friend, and we went out and it has turned into something good. I proposed to her in a mobile home at Jack Barber’s yard, nothing to flash but thankfully she said yes straight away.
“Unfortunately she can’t come to Cheltenham as she is working but I will show her the replay when I get back.”
One man that the Compton Durville resident wishes was here to witness this moment is the man that first got him interested in racing- his dad Vernon, who passed away six years ago.
However, despite the man, who he shared many of his earliest racing memories with no longer being around, Couchman expects him to be watching on from the skies above.
He added: “My dad loved his racing. He loved having a bet on a Saturday and at the Cheltenham Festival.
“When I was growing up and the Derby was on a Wednesday I used to have that day off to watch the Derby with him as we were down near Guildford which wasn’t far away.
“He wasn’t one for watching the race in the grandstand, but I got mum and dad tickets to see me leading up Zaforum in the 1996 Derby. His ashes were put around the winning post at Epsom as that was his favourite track.
“I still have the odd dodgy moment as dad’s birthday was March 9th. Whether it gets to me on the day I don’t know, but hopefully he will be looking down on me.
“I know if he was here he would be well chuffed if the horse could go and do it.”
Like many others, it wasn’t until Hermes Allen won at Stratford that Couchman realised just how good he could be, however he admits the nerves will only truly kick in should Hermes Allen find himself in front turning for home in the Grade One contest.
He said: “When he went to Stratford I asked Charlie Milligan, who rides him, ‘What is he working like’ and she said he was not showing much.
“We went to Stratford and his co-owner John Hales said to Bryony (Frost) don’t make me look stupid win as far as you can and he won by 20 odd lengths on the bridle! It was like switching on a light for him as his work has been brilliant after that.
“He went to Cheltenham for the Grade Two he won that easy and after that he went to the Challow Hurdle and the ground that day was like a ploughed field but he demolished a good field and the form has worked out brilliantly.
“I’m quite laid back but Scott Marshall, who looks after Bravemansgame, said you won’t be able to sleep the night before the race. The only time I get nervous though is if he is front around the home bend, that is when I the nerves will really kick in.”
Whatever result Hermes Allen achieves at the Festival one thing he can be assured of is he will be given his favourite treat by Couchman when he arrives back in the yard that night.
He added: “He hasn’t got a bad bone in him and he is brilliant to deal with. He gets apples every day as he doesn’t eat Polos!
“When my fiancé goes shopping at the end of the week I make sure she gets an extra bag of apples so I can take them into work for him and he has an apple a day when I do him at evening stables.
“To be honest I didn’t think I would go to Paul’s and look after something as good as him straight away.
“Harry Cobden called him a machine after he won at Newbury and let’s hope he can live up to that.”
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