The New Year started well – an excellent piece of news has come in the form of Subaru, which, I am delighted to say, is one of my new sponsors and I love my new Outback – it’s ideal for my lifestyle. I am also thrilled to welcome Ariat on board as a sponsor and I absolutely live in their boots! (My whole yard team love them too!)

What’s also been lovely for me is that I have had a couple of fantastic holidays – I find it incredibly hard to take time out throughout the year so tend to save everything up for January – usually a quiet month on the yard. I went skiing for a week (something I’ve loved doing since I was a child) and also spent two weeks in St Lucia on a fitness holiday, where I actually met Amy Winehouse who was very affable and delighted some of the guests one evening by taking to the piano at the bar – she really does have an amazing voice.

Then it was back to the UK and very cold weather. There was also a couple of photo shoots for different magazines, which I enjoyed and I was particularly pleased to have a lovely tan for the photos!

Everything is coming together well and I am feeling really positive – I have some fabulous horses on my yard – at all levels – and I am looking forward to next season, the European Championships in 2009 and the World Games in 2010, not to mention London 2012 too!