I was forced into a frank conversation after the death of poor Cuthbert Dibble - it's one all of racing needs to have

"People get really uncomfortable talking about death," a friend noted recently, not offering it as an original thought but one which had been underlined by recent experience. This general squeamishness in the face of a vital subject is, I would guess, not very good for us – hire a philosopher to find out more – but what I can tell you for sure is that it's a real problem for horseracing.

I was at Chepstow recently, a fixture which has been a regular source of joy for 40 years. I took my 12-year-old daughter and she brought her friend, just in case my racing chat wasn't quite enough to keep her entertained for five hours.

We managed to miss the first because herding kids isn't as easy as it looks, so almost the first thing we did was go to the paddock for the novice chase, where the girls took an immediate shine to the handsome Cuthbert Dibble, who had lots of 1s in his form, came from a red-hot yard and was even-money favourite.