I CAN’T believe how fast this year has gone.

I feel like I haven’t done half of the things I wanted to do and had planned to do with the horses.

Mind you, what a year. The floods stopped lots of events from happening and then the foot and mouth.

And in between times Jim has been lame and now he has no shoes on!

The shoes saga has been a nightmare with Jim. During the summer his hooves became very dry, even though I was using hoof moist on them. They became quite cracked.

Then when we had all the rain Jim decided he was a three-year-old and went tearing around the field, pulling off some shoes and taking chunks of his hoof off with them!

When Martin came to shoe the horses several weeks ago, Jim hadn’t enough hoof to get shoes on, so he has just had several weeks off.

I’ve really missed riding and wanted to at least have a go at some of the hunter trials and cross-country clinics coming up, but it’s not to be.

So, all in all, I hardly seem to have done much this year. That’s the joy of horse ownership though; all the best laid plans and all that!

Jim is due to be shod during the half- term holiday and I’m really hoping that he will be as I am – dare I say it – planning to take him to the Borders to stay with my friend Jane.

Jane has a little mare called Hati, who has had the same problem with shoes and so we thought we can ride around the hills of Scotland together to start getting the horses fit.

There are miles and miles of off-road riding.

Sadly I am also going to Jane’s for another reason.

Jane has an ex-racehorse Harry, who is in his twenties, that has arthritis in his joints. When he lies down, he really struggles to get up, so Jane has made the very difficult decision to have Harry put to sleep as it would not be fair to let him struggle through another winter.

He has had a lovely summer, not being ridden, just chilling out with his friends and eating.

I don’t envy Jane the decision, but it is something that many of us sadly have to face at one time or another.

On a happier note, Abi’s horse Rocky finally went to a super home locally and is loved as much there as he was at home.

The family adore him and he has settled well. Mind you, Rocky settles anywhere, as long as he is fed, he really doesn’t care where he is.