Last Sunday, I caught the end of the BBC1 Sunday morning programme, The Big Questions, a discussion programme on topics of the day with invited contributors in the studio. It was rather alarming to find so many, mostly young and bright people, supporting the idea that social media should remain unpoliced using the argument that, to patrol it was supressing free speech.

The debate centred more in a political arena but all the arguments and tales of vicicous online abuse (trolling) transfer to the sports arena. Sportspeople and perhaps none more so than jockeys, given the extra element betting and losing money on a horse, frequently generate abuse comments directed personally, and publicly to a jockey. Soccer and GAA players have also been the subject of abuse.