A while ago we were at a horse show. Zara and I walked the course, and I read the jump off and told Zara what it was.

I misread it so after Zara rode beautifully and jumped clear on both ponies in the first round, which at the heights she’s jumping is an achievement, she missed a jump in the jump off and was eliminated.

It was 100% my fault as I’d read the course wrong so she was following the directions I gave her.

I made me think, it takes so many right decisions to get the win any individual ‘battle’, and one wrong decision can undo it all.

But then Zara did her Instagram post with the weekend’s update. There was no mention of Daddy’s mistake, just ‘I missed a fence.’

She completely owned it. As the leader of her equestrian team, she took ultimate responsibility for my mistake. That made me so proud of her, and her character.

So, I realised, while we lost that ‘battle’, we are winning the ‘war’.

The ‘war’ can absorb many mistakes, in fact it must, the key is to not let any mistake throw us off course.