Goodbye Leo.

Well what a journey we have had over the past three years. I got this pony back in September of 2010 after buying him off the showground on our way back from having a pony which had failed its vetting. Little did i know how big a part Leo was going to play in my life for the next three years. But i also didn't know how much hard work was involved. After coming off my old pony I had little confidence after having a few bad falls so Leo was a big step for me and I had no confidence on him what so ever, the first few months were difficult..I had no control, i was scared to hack him and it was such a battle to even get over a couple jumps in a row. It didn't take me long to start doubting myself in the decision of buying such a fast and strong pony as I'd never had something like him before, I remember saying to myself that its just not going to work..But how wrong was I? Six months had past and we were finally getting somewhere, I had found my breaks and I started to get more confident and I was able to trust Leo. We went to our first competition doing the 2ft class and we won which was my first ever time actually winning anything. The next two years i spent with Leo were great, we had had our battles and we were both in syn..going out competing most weekends was the best opportunity we could of ever had it really kick started our journey. I took things so slowly with Leo because he'd only really been jumping for a year now and I didn't want to rush into things, I stayed at about 80cms for the next year and we would get placed all the time. In my final year with Leo i started to realize how much potential Leo had and how much he enjoyed what he does, this is when i pushed him up to the 90's and 100's and he just flew round them like he'd been doing it all his life and it filled me with such achievement. In all that time it wasn't easy, we'd have times where we would go completely backwards and things weren't working again, but we learnt from our mistakes and moved forward more each time. I never got to do the foxhunter(1m10) that I had set as one of my goals for the end of the year, but me going from an un-confident, nervous rider on a pony that had never jumped and was in my eyes bloody difficult to ride, to jumping what we did I am extremely proud of me&him. I dedicated my whole life to this pony that I never really had any social life apart from the yard, I would be up there everyday to see him and just spend time with him because he's what made me happy, so now that he's gone it is hard because I don't have that anymore but knowing that he's in the best place with the best family makes me so happy, and I hope he goes on to achieve the things he's capable of with them. I will take away so many memories me and this pony shared from the good times and the bad times, and the times where I just wanted to give up. This pony has 100% made me into the rider I am today and I cant thank him enough for being such the fun&enjoyable pony he was for the three years I had him, he will never ever compare to anything he will always be my favorite little man. I hope he remembers me.