Dear diary,
This will be my final diary… of 2024 anyways, before you all do a mother and panic more than a Victoria’s Secret model near an open flame…
It’s kissmuss next week and then it will be New Year’s and then poof! Just like that 2024 is gone faster than a Polo mint near my left nostril.
And what a year it has been!
We will skim over the couple of instances where I have been abused and my depths plundered like an abandoned gold mine in Tex-Ass – more like Sore Ass I can assure you – without so much as dinner being bought first. The memory of Herman wearing my tail as a moustache due to how far up my back passage his arm was wedged is not one I wish to carry forth into next year. I do not wish to know the 2025 rates for anal penetration and thus one of my New Year’s revolutions will be to endeavour not to give the mothership any further reasons to call out any vet-shaped canaries to mine the lower levels of my bowels…
What we will focus on is the fact that 2024 was the year that the mighty British Eventing, led by their frankly brilliant CEO Rosie, had the humility, the dignity and the self-awareness to admit that for all these years they had got it wrong. That unconscious featherism had affected their decision making and they had in fact overlooked the greatest talent to never grace the top levels of eventing. Sadly, of course, I am now too old (and in mother’s view, too broken) to be able to now compete for King and country, but I could contribute the next best thing. Under the guise of asking me to be the official supporters’ mascot for the team (they couldn’t afford to upset the human in the role), they snuck me in as the equine chef de squeak to coach, guide and steer our team in a way it had never been done before. And what can I say? Did we or did we not dominate the entire thing from start to finish? They may be featherless thoroughbred types but did I or did I not manage to guide my little flightless chicklets to greatness? From my tips on the trot-up to steerage in the stressage, I was with them every step of the way and we are now Olympic champions. I even found time to rub a little of my magic onto the Japanese team who were photographed clutching my cutout like some sort of good luck charm…
I’m pretty sure the entire equestrian world woke up to the idea that we should not allow appearances, breeding, nor background to stand in the way of dreams and that if you want something badly enough, are prepared to work at it, prepared to do whatever it takes (which to be clear, is to merely stay one step away from a restraining order) then anything is possible. I am and forever will be the epitome of the Olympic dream and the essence of the #HeretoHelp campaign for British Eventing.
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All of this of course was captured in my NINTH book (come on people, surely I must be due a Hooker prize soon?), which has been released in aid of the charity Bransby Horses. For any of you scrabbling with last minute gift ideas then please do think of putting me in to your stockings…
The book, of course, was released at the cult event Your Horse is Alive where I got to meet two of my superstar students for them to give me my gold medal and for the incredible Ros Canter to top what has been the most phenomenal year – achieving a career high of getting to ride the OG of equine influencers the one and only Destroyer. It doesn’t get any better than that.
So, as I close out what has been the most amazing year, a massive thank you to all of you who have supported us, who have bought the book, bought raffle tickets to win my mini-me and generally helped me to do what all of this is about – help others.
Have a fantastic Kissmuss, a wonderful New Year (don’t forget those revolutions peoples – stand up and do those spins) and I will see you all on the other side.
Laters,
Hovis
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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.
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