Hovis’ Friday diary: ‘Decorate trees, not horses’

Screen-Shot-2020-01-02-at-17.16.40.png — (Image credit: Karen Thompson)

Dear diary,

I am writing this from within my stable as mother nature continues to ensure that we don’t so much have fields as swimming pools, with mud patches so deep we are in danger of re-enacting the snot-inducing scene from The Never Ending Story just trying to get to the yard. I last saw white on my legs some 456,980 days ago and my rugs won’t need a wash – the mud will need to be chiseled off. In essence, it’s a wet, muddy, grim time of year.

Talking of time of the year, I find myself sighing as I write this because I feel that I repeat myself year after year at this time, like some sort of feathered, unpaid public service announcement. And yet still these appalling acts of cruelty persist, no lessons are learned and the consequences continue to be felt. Sort of like someone sending mother a fat fighters recipe book, I feel I am royally wasting my time, but I owe it to both my fellow equines and the half a dozen humans who actually might be saved from their stupidity to keep trying.

If we had been intended to go out in public wearing antlers, we would have been born mooses (or is it moosi? I have no idea). Tinsel is tacky regardless of what it is on, but draped around necks or billowing up left nostrils every time a four-legged being inhales is not classy. And anything with bells, well frankly I could give a very, very accurate description of where you can stick them and you’d need one of Herman’s very long gloves on to retrieve them… In short – if you want to make something look all festive, buy a tree.

Now, I give this warning not just for the sake of my fellow equines, who frankly suffer enough without you all making us parade round in public like a survivor of a festive explosion at B&M, jingling like some sort of oversized goat from The Sound Of Music, while having to be seen in proximity to our humans dressed like some sort of overgrown elf. But it’s also the ramifications which you just don’t seem to learn. You see, we do understand the concept of revenge – and it being best served colder than my mother’s heart. Year after year I try to tell you that when we try to turn you into human darts in spring, it has nada to do with the weather, the spring grass, nor the change in our coats – in short, we are not “fresh” we are furious. We can’t stop you ruining our street cred, our self-respect and any possibility of finding love in the festive period because frankly, no one finds green and red striped tights attractive, but we can make you all pay. Heavily. Just when you’re not expecting it.

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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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