Sarah Sjoholm-Patience: 2017 In Review

A funny thing, time. I heard a wonderful piece of wisdom over mince pies today: “Six months viewed into the future seems like a long time, when viewed in hindsight, it is just like yesterday.” I am not certain of the original source of this quote, but I am certain that it rings true.

Looking back on this year, I have mixed emotions. It has been a year of a lot of travel for both business and pleasure. I have helped match a handful of people with fantastic horses, and I have gotten to tick a few items on my equestrian bucket list, going to see a performance of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, and wandering around back stage as well as my first visits to both Equitana in Germany and Your Horse Live in the UK.

Professionally there have been some great highlights as well, with some fantastic development opportunities as I attended what seems like many symposiums and conventions, rode for several top trainers and attended special demos by the likes of Ingrid Klimke and Carl Hester. I am proud to have helped raise funds for a couple of charities that are important to me, namely the Epsom RDA and The Brooke. I also was privileged to get to watch top competitors in action at CHIO Aachen, the Hickstead CDI and Olympia.

On the less positive, the loss of my own competition mare to injury in late 2016 left me without a competition ride for 2017. It was very odd spending the year on the side lines, and while I revelled in the successes of my clients, I long to get back in to my competition whites – well, maybe not immediately, but in a couple of weeks when I have managed to burn off the Christmas overindulgence. Hopefully 2018 will be a different story, with some of my greener mounts looking ready to compete, and with space for a few more in the stable, perhaps a few new partners as well.

I wrap up 2017 feeling both grateful and optimistic, and hope that you find yourself in a similar situation. Looking forward to 2018, it is time to get planning, please do check out my latest blog posting on how to go about making an annual plan.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *