So, finally it’s come to an end. No, I don’t mean the humans wearing muzzles (although frankly I’m not sure looking at the state of some of them that they should be allowed to graze freely any time soon), but more my early retirement. It looks like the school is now ready for use and whilst there are still lots of machines around doing the second school – and perhaps digging mother another hole in which she buries equine hopes and dreams – it has been announced that “I need bringing back into work”.
The indignant tone to the way this is said infers I am some sort of lazy, work-shy layabout rather than a medical miracle who has fought back from the edge and/or a highly trained, ninja-reflexed protector of humans with zero survival instincts. The fact that my incompetent human incumbencies can’t cope with the speed or decisiveness of my evasive life-saving actions says more about them than me. Let’s be honest the only core my mother has is that of the decaying apple in her sad excuse of a fruit basket – which let’s be honest is only there to convince the neighbours that she’s a functioning adult. The only fruit she really eats has been fermented for quite a period and comes in liquid format…
Mother is still limping about like a bow-legged emu with piles so how on earth she thinks she’s going to get her leg over I actually have no idea, but the limp is accompanied with a steely-eyed determination that doesn’t bode well for either of us. Aunty Em has been enlisted to assist, but upon a suggestion that she could pilot Hoverine Airlines seemed about as keen as Nemo attending the opening night of Cats. I have no idea why? A new school which I’ve never seen before, multitudes of very large machines parked up all over the place, a nip in the air and a lack of any work for months – what could possibly be the issue?
One could argue that this is less Aunty Em being a cowardly lion and more proof that she’s more intelligent than mother. But let’s be honest, mother’s intellect is rivalled only by garden tools: if brains were petrol, she couldn’t ride a moped around a fruit loop. The only thing that saves her from someone suggesting her brain is below par is the fact her body is so much worse – if I was in the state she is in I would be grazing on the other side of the colourful bridge faster than you can say “euthanasia on humane grounds”. Why there remains this inequality between humans and horses I know not; I’ve mentioned this before I know, but it gets more firmly up my snoozle than my chaff when I inhale and eat. For the record multi-tasking is very overrated…
Why is it that a human can be a little on the heavier side and everyone is like “hey you go girl”, whereas an equine is a little well-conditioned and everyone is like “no hay for you boy”? I sneeze and I’m being force-fed equine Columbian marching powder and being “lightly exercised to clear the lungs” – mother coughs and she’s on the couch for five days with food brought in by underpaid kangeroos? Mother carries a little extra coverage and she switches to lounge pants and baggy sweaters, I carry the same and I’m out in all weathers naked as Ross Kemp’s bonce to “shiver it off”? Equine inequality remains a very real issue and I do, once again, ponder whether I need to take a stance on all our behalf. Your views are much appreciated.
In the meantime I’m going to enjoy my last few days of freedom and ponder the freestyle movements I might be able to perform in mother’s come back concert.
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Hovis shared his weekly diary each Friday on the Horse & Hound website between 2008 and February 2025. Initially located on the popular H&H forum, he moved to the main website in February 2013. He published nine books, each to raise funds for his local equine welfare charity Bransby Horses. You can read all his diary entries below. H&H also published a final tribute to our much-loved equine contributor.
