Dear diary,
I am fed up.
And whoa there – before you write this off as grumpy old Hovis is having a whinge again, just hear me out.
I want to talk about ageism.
And sizeism.
And featherism.
And every ism I can think of that is being exhibited by that dodgy, masonic-like cult they cutely (and cunningly) call The Pony Club.
For a start, it’s not a club. A club is inclusive and inviting, a club welcomes all members and offers activities that all can enjoy. No, this is a cult. Where it seems you have to be small, ginger and possibly Welsh to join. If you’re *cough* not small, only-ginger-in-the-wrong-light and Irish, it appears that you’re about as welcome as a hedgehog in a condom factory.
Over the past few months I have seen an uptick in Pony Club “events” which the ginger whinger pootles off too like a smug, small snitch, giving me the side eye as he sets off in MY executive transport while I am left on the shelf like some sort of aged, slightly dusty ornament held together with some gorilla glue and a prayer. And I have born this with the fortitude of the man that I am. I may have taught mini-mother all she knows, she might have wiped snot down my legs, she may have learnt to walk clinging onto my feathers and I may have not trampled on her the way I do mother for the past 10 years, all of which appears to have been TOTALLY forgotten, but I bear no grudge. Well, except with the bijou blonde boy who frankly I would dearly like to flick into the next county…
However, this week I have been pushed to breaking point.
This week the pint-sized pain in the posterior went to the gallops.
Like the proper gallops.
Like at a racecourse
While I waited at home in the rain for someone to fetch me an umbrella and possibly some sort of awning – which by the way I’m still waiting for…
It appears the cult organised a trip to a racing college and all I can say is if this is not proof of their appalling discrimination then I don’t know what is. Because everyone with a brain knows I am the greatest loss to the racing word since Sea Biscuit went soggy. I AM the Hovis Hobnob and frankly am way better suited to racing than Ginger nut.
For a start he doesn’t know how to gallop. I do. As I have shown on many occasions when I have carted mother halfway across Lincolnshire.
He is incapable of even a fast canter; his canter resembles a constipated bouncy ball and he couldn’t open up if you used a tin opener. I, meanwhile, have left everyone I have ever stubble raced so far in my wake I had to send a carrier pigeon back with directions.
He has absolutely no killer instinct to win. You put him up front and his foot comes off the gas faster than mother eats a custard cream. I, meanwhile, have absolutely no issue with being up front – as Aunty S discovered the first time we went bloodhounding. In my defence, I didn’t know that it wasn’t a race – I did behave after that although mother did put that more down to the uber-strength bit she put in rather than any acquired etiquette…
The point being that if mini-mother had had the choice, then there’s no doubt whatsoever that she would have taken me. I get there’s a few more miles on the clock, a bit of extra poundage and the body work is held together with a paperclip and a prayer, but that’s just mother – I’m fine. Twenty-one is no age at all and a quick few furlongs for a feather-powered Ferrari like me is nothing. So thus it can only be down to all the -isms displayed by this cult she has joined.
So, who is with me to complain? Slogans under consideration are #onlyhorsesforracecourses, #biggerisbetter and my personal favourite #ponycultwhataninsult.
I will be down the field making protest signs in the crops if anyone cares to help me.
Laters,
Hovis
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