Hovis' Friday diary: being left outside

Dear diary

Mother hates me. It’s official. Admittedly, I may have pushed my luck a little further than was advisable at the weekend — sort of into a different postcode area if I’m honest, but I think her reaction is out of proportion.

Surely this is cruelty of the highest order? Can someone not ring the RSFPCTDFB (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Delicate Feathery Beasts) for me please? Admittedly Dolly’s mum has thrown her out too and the Ginger fly-trap and the spotty dude have been out for weeks, but that’s SO not the point. I am a sensitive little flower who needs my beauty sleep and I’m truly not sure that sleeping on the GROUND qualifies.

Added to which we’re turned out in our winter paddocks at night so we have NO grass. Well ok we have grass, but hardly enough to keep big old me alive. I might waste away and be mistaken for a thoroughbred. Talking of mistaken identities, I think mother got her visual references all muddled up on Monday night. I swear she repeatedly called me a “spanner” as I rampaged up and down the field demonstrating my Las Vegas chorus girl high kicks. She did call me something much ruder — but when mini mother started shouting that down the field at the top of her tiny, but definitely working, lungs, mother swiftly changed the reference point to being tools. I’m pretty sure being called a spanner is not a compliment, but it was a slight improvement on the slur on my ancestral heritage that she had been spouting…

Now, if I’m honest I had possibly deserved mother’s wrath over the weekend. I may have possibly been a little forward on my “walk-only” hack on Saturday. I may have possibly jogged sideways down the back track of doom. I might have spooked at two ducks that were, to be honest, minding their own business. I could possibly, to the untrained eye, have looked like I had a mini meltdown and tried to sprint for home. I will refute the last comment until my dying breath — I was concerned mother had left my stable door unlocked and fancied a quick jog back to check on things. Honest.

I then might have further blotted my copy book the following day in the school, by executing a couple of walk to canter transitions that that Flatlands Doritos chap would have been proud of in his heyday. To be fair, I think mother would have been thrilled with them if a) she’d asked for them and b) she’d not just spent the equivalent of several third world countries national debt on injections for my feet. As it was, I can report with all honesty that she wasn’t that impressed. I was made to ponce round for twice the amount of time she’d falsely promised me, when I had been dragged reluctantly into the school at the beginning.

Apparently, there’s nothing wrong with the rest of my body so “I needn’t think I can walk about like a giraffe with a hernia”. Clearly mother has been reading or watching my supposed friend Mr Nester again because we did a LOT of transitions. Now bearing in mind I’m only allowed to walk the transitions were a lot of stop, start, stop, start. I felt like a Ford Fiesta being driven by an escapee from a driving school. One who’d only had two lessons to start with…

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

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.

Join the Hovis fan group on Facebook