Today, I can look back and count on the fingers of one fully intact hand the days I missed through various knocks and bangs. Add all that up and the 198 winners between here and the UK easily beats the 153 I had last year.

The numbers are nice but in the end that's all they are and they won't be what I'll remember the season for. You won't need to have been glued to the Racing Post every day to work out what will stick longest in my mind.

Ever since he won at Liverpool last April, Kauto Star was the horse I was always going to carry around with me for the season. He kept me going on days when I'd fallen or days when I'd trailed in with a few fourths and a couple of sixths. The thought that I had a potential Gold Cup horse on my hands, one that just built up excitement all the way from Haydock to Sandown to Kempton to Newbury to Cheltenham, sustained me throughout. It's been the thrill of a lifetime to be associated with a horse this special.

The Gold Cup was the big highlight but I had a lot of luck with other big races through the year. Some of them were unexpected . . . like when Silverburn won the Tolworth in January or when New Little Bric won a nice Grade One also at Sandown the following month.

These were horses I thought were nice enough but they turned out to be better than that again and, in their own way, gave me as big a feeling of satisfaction as Kauto or Denman did. Even at the end of the year, to win the novice handicap on the last day of Punchestown on Alexander Taipan and follow it up with Glencove Marina in the big novice hurdle race was a great feeling.

When things go right for you and add up like that, you have all the ingredients for a memorable year. I was especially delighted to ride some winners for Willie Mullins at Punchestown because he'd had a flat enough winter after Bothar Na's win in the Kerry National in September had brought him a great start.

Losing Missed That back in November was a huge blow in that it took away the horse we thought was going to be the stable star for the season. To finish it off on a high was a big relief. As for my other boss, Paul Nicholls just goes from strength to strength in England. The amount of star horses he has over in Ditcheat is almost frightening.

Outside of Kauto and Denman, he has the likes of Star De Mohaison and Neptune Collognes . . . and those are just in the top-class staying chaser category. Twist Magic looks like he could turn out to be a serious Champion Chase horse and he has any amount of others in the pipeline.

Outside of myself, I was delighted to see Robbie Power and Gordon Elliott take the Grand National with Silver Birch and the same goes for Philip Carberry and John Carr with Sublimity in the Champion Hurdle.

It was great to see David Casey back at the end of the year and brilliant, too, that Davy Condon finally got a bit of recognition. Hopefully, the next while will bring a change in luck for Alan Crowe who's had a terrible time with injuries. His experiences, as well as the stop-start year Paul Carberry just had, reminds you how vital it is to stay fit and healthy.

Meanwhile, what Daryl Jacob and especially Tom O'Brien achieved as conditional jockeys over in England was phenomenal. And it probably goes without saying that Tony McCoy and his 12th jockey's title in a row is beyond incredible too but I'll say it anyway.

So now we're into summer racing and the slightly silly situation that we arrive at every year where we keep going hell-for-leather, eyeballs out, without a moment to look around us.

There's a 10-day break from jump racing around the week of the Irish Derby next month but it's not enough and at a time when the flat season is struggling to get going, we're a distraction. To me, a three-week clean break would give us all time to catch our breaths, it would leave the public hungry for when we'd come back and it would take people off the treadmill for a while. The problem is, it's really only jockeys and stable staff who want a break. Owners don't, trainers don't and racecourse managers definitely don't.

There was a great crowd at Ballinrobe on Wednesday night, Roscommon and Sligo get lovely crowds through the summer and I suppose some people would worry that a break would mean people would leave and not come back.

I don't buy that, though.

I think if it was structured right and we had a three-week break from the beginning of June when the sun is out and the ground is hard, there'd be no problem.

Can't see it happening, though.