December Blog Hop: Year in Retrospect

This month's Equestrian Bloggers blog hop was the perfect topic for me! I've always done a favourite moments/best bits of the year blog post, but with my losing my grandma last month and her funeral last weekend, I've not had the motivation to create that blog post, so luckily Bridle and Bone had me covered! What were your success this year with your horses or your blog? Would you change anything?

My 2017 was a year of massive successes with my blog and my horses, with just one not so good memory with Vallu's leg injury! But we are already nearly back in full work, so it was just a momentary blip rather than the end 🎊🎉

Winning the 2017 Equestrian Blogger of the Year award was obviously amazing. It STILL feels like just yesterday that I was on twitter following along the awards ceremony and congratulating the International Talent winner (Tacchi A Cavallo), the Rising Star winner (How Very Horsey) and the recognition of talent (Diary of a Wimpy Eventer) and then going to make a cup of tea whilst waiting for the announcement of the winner and wondering why my phone was going mad with notifications, before realising that I had actually blooming won it!! It made me feel like my little corner of the blogosphere is actually worth something and what I write about is interesting for other people to read! Although I’ve always blogged for myself, I’ve been a bit nervous if other people find what I write about incredibly boring so to win an award definitely put those negative thoughts away. It's also made my brothers and other friends and family members (bless them) realise that this is not just a phase and I am actually sometimes quite good at this! 👑🏆

My year with Vallu has been wonderful, I have once again learnt so much about being a good rider thanks to him and after changing bits and getting a new double bridle I think we are (tbh more like I am) finally ready to compete next year. After falling off twice in 2016 and ending up in hospital for more than 24 hours the second time it took a while for me to feel totally comfortable and confident with him. But luckily for the last couple of months we’ve had so many moments where I could have fallen off but I haven’t and he could have easily put me on the floor and he hasn’t so I finally feel like he’s back with me and letting me ride him rather than us bickering about who is the boss and whether or not he can totally trust me. Understandably, him hurting his leg (LINK HERE) forced me to slow things down for 2 months but now that we are at 35 minutes of work I am starting to feel like we are back on track and ready for next season! Obviously, we need to have lessons beforehand and I need to learn to be able to sit to his medium and extended trot, but we’ve got a couple of months for that!

Basse has been my superstar throughout 2017 ⭐️ He’s been my best hacking buddy, my cuddle bear and my treasure consistency throughout the year. Although we’ve had some saddle troubles which resulted in a couple of weeks of holiday followed by some dodgy bare back riding (super fun though) now that he is using Vallu’s saddle the physio and equine sports massage therapist both agree that he is doing better than ever and I agree! All the problems that his lig/tendon injury gave us seem to be going away (knocks on wood!). My lesson with Jane in March was the only lesson I’ve had with him this year but that’s only because I don’t trust anyone else with this horse as I need the trainer to listen to me and let me give him a break when he needs it rather than push his body into exhaustion. But that one lesson changed the way I thought about riding him entirely and I still refer back to my lesson recap post all the time! Yes he will always have his kissing spine problems and yes his front legs are crappy but it doesn’t mean we can’t go out and enjoy ourselves. Basse has always loved going to clinics and competitions and since he’s been on fire for the last month and I’m so excited to see how he is to compete next year!

What about you? How has 2017 been for you?

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