Shooting in RAW vs Shooting in JPEG

There are many advantages to shooting in both formats. For instance shooting in RAW you can get the highest level of quality as it records all the data from the sensor, unlike JPEG which processes the image in the camera, so the white balance the colour saturation etc are already applied to the image before you even get a chance to tamper with it in post production. Also RAW records greater levels of brightness, as it can record between 4,096 to 16,384 different levels, whereas JPEG only records 256. 
Seeing as shooting RAW allows you to gain better detail in your images, you have access to sharpening and noise algorithms in programs such as Adobe Lightroom. However I find that when shooting in RAW I can take far fewer pictures than when shooting in JPEG, because the size of each image is so vast that it takes up a lot of memory on my SDHC Card, which is only 8GB. This is when I find shooting in JPEG so much better, because the file size is so much smaller than a RAW file, so far less storage is needed meaning I can take loads more picture, also due to the smaller size, cameras can write JPEG files much faster than RAW, allowing me to shoot at higher frames per second and for longer periods of time. 
Here is an example of an undoctored image I shot in RAW:
I do absolutely love this image, because I think the Chestnut pony contrasts great against the trees in the background. Though it is a shame that I didn't include the entire woman, the horse was the subject I was mainly focusing on. I feel the colours are rich and vibrant, and the focusing is soft. I never felt the need to edit this picture, as I thought it looked great just the way it came out. 

As you can see this file size for this RAW image is a whopping 9.7mb, taking up an incredible amount of space on my SD Card. 

Here is a JPEG image I have shot using the same camera and lens:
My dilemma is that I feel this image is also very rich and vibrant, although the focusing may be a little less soft. I also didn't feel the need to overly doctor this image, in fact I don't think I've doctored it at all because I was pleased with the way it turned out. As you can see this image only takes up 127kb, which is far smaller than the RAW file, meaning I could have taken so many more shots that day than I could have the day I was a photographer at the New Forest Show. 

So, to conclude, I believe that yes there are far many more advantages to shooting in RAW, but unless you can afford to splash out on a 128GB memory card or two, it's no use for when you want to take a vast amount of pictures. I do believe however that so long as you're thinking about the composition, the lighting, and how you're going to shoot your image, shooting in JPEG should give you some great results.