ONE issue that has increasingly made its way into the headlines recently is that of bullying. It might be something you imagined happened rarely, but there are so many forms now of bullying and we need to be aware of their existence.

What exactly is bullying? For many it is probably something that they might associate with children and that it takes the form of physical or verbal abuse, especially in the school yard. However, that is a far too narrow a view of what bullying is, and nowadays it is increasingly widespread among adults. It also takes a number of forms.

One of the most vicious of these is cyberbullying, and this can often happen while the perpetrator or abuser hides behind an anonymous or fake profile. Bullying can also be verbal, physical and social.

While many sports people and those in the public eye understand that they are open to criticism, it does not grant an automatic freedom to those who are disenchanted to stoop to abusing them on social media sites and elsewhere. Some horrific examples of jockeys who made an honest mistake being driven to mental distress over their subsequent treatment online are inexcusable.

As employers, employees, colleagues and as human beings, we all have a responsibility to respect each other. Where we are aware of bullying, are subject to bullying or indeed where in some cases we may be responsible for bullying, we all have a duty to help to stamp out this behaviour and to report incidents to someone responsible.

The Irish Field has launched a short online survey to see if the instances of bullying in our sport and industry, thoroughbred and sport horse, are isolated or otherwise. I would ask readers to check this out on our website and answer the questions in strict confidence.

Equally, if you wish to email me, again in the strictest confidence, with your personal stories, please feel free to do so. I would like to think that we each work in an industry that respects all individuals.

The consequences of ignoring instances of bullying, or burying our heads in the sand and pretending it does not happen, can be very harmful for the victims. No one should have to endure such attacks and those who carry out such instances of bullying need to understand the harm and distress their needless actions can have.