I'm probably more surprised that anyone that this weblog ("blog") quietly passed its 12 month anniversary today.

It's been quite a journey: 667 posts, more than 140,000 words and quite a few nights wondering how it was that I was suddenly married to an Internet account and all number of newspapers and web portals (typically 1-2 hours of research a day) in addition to my competing work, travel and client commitments.

The 12 months has been a time of continual expansion - our original few dozen daily readers have grown to a few thousand and we now have a huge number of highly influential Industry professionals also regularly reading our posts which often makes me sit back and contemplate how amazing it is how quickly these things accelerate.

The aim has always been to give something back to the Industry - marketing ideas, opinion and an overview of what others are doing - all free of the advertising dollar which can so often influence what is written. It hasn't been easy - websites are incredibly expensive things to run and some of the sponsorship offers have been excruciatingly tempting (particularly the last one!!!) but we have chosen to remain ad-free at this point in time.

In 365 days we have canvassed all number of topics from around the globe - from branding to advertising to stallion performance to media watch segments and everything in between. We have (unashamedly) stirred controversy with some of the things we have written - but equally we have been buoyed by the large amount of positive feedback we have received.

I'd like to thank John Baxter for his editorial role during the first 6 months of the blog's history, Helen McDonald for her recent contributions, the large number of readers in Europe/North America/Dubai/New Zealand/Australia/Hong Kong who regularly email me with ideas and feedback - and the Industry itself for inspiring me on a daily basis.

Here's to the next 140,000 words!