Hovis’ Friday diary: equal rights for hairies — #myfeathersmychoice

Dear diary,

So, I’m on count down now until I once again head for Your Horse is Alive, once again launching one of my fantastic literary works of brilliance and once again raising funds for equines less fortunate than myself. I’m also hoping to use the event to formally launch my mane-ifesto and to kick off my campaign — although to be fair I probably won’t use the words “kick off” or indeed “kick on”, it appears to cause all sorts of chaos…

Talking of chaos, it’s a good job I am well-behaved, or I could have caused all sorts of issues the other day. She-who-must-be-obeyed had tied me up in the barn while she sorted out my stable (I’d been in during the day due to the flies) and got the wheelbarrow loaded to take all my gear and, more importantly, my dinner back to the field. Clearly, she failed knot tying 101 and as such I found myself loose in the barn, trailing my lead-rope behind me like Kim Kardashian hangers on, and facing a conundrum. Did I walk out of the barn towards the school where the patches of lush grass beckoned to me like One Directions groupies beckoning Hairy Styles? Or did I preserve the remainder of my life and go and show mum I was now free.

Being a boy of some considerable intelligence and bearing the scars of previously ill thought-out unaccompanied wanderings (I mean mental scars people — I am not a battered horse), I headed to where mother was mucking out my stable. What’s concerning is I sauntered in and it took her about a minute to realise I shouldn’t have been able to do that if I had still been connected to the bailer twine she had left me on. Sometimes mother’s mental capacity makes Dory look like a Mastermind winner…

At the weekend I was disappointed to realise that the party down the road from me at Burghley had once again been and gone with no invite. What is with these people? I understand Mark Hot Toddy rode brilliantly but still parted company with his mount — something that simply would not happen with me; I’m too used to saving mum from eating dirt with the mere power of my neck. I understand Ollie Village-end rode all three of his mounts well but couldn’t quite get the time on two of them — something that simply would not happen with me; I’d rampage around that course in a way never seen before. I’m not in any way adverse to giving a lucky lady rider the day of her life either — being astride the Destroyer must, after all, be the highlight of Mary King’s career — so I am flummoxed why yet again I have been over-looked? I was only up the road? A quick flick of the mane and I could have been there faster than you could say “replacement steed” when some of these feeble thoroughbred types couldn’t cope and had to be withdrawn. I’m disappointed people, really, I am. This constant featherist behaviour is frankly something that needs addressing; even the breed traitor himself has had to shave his feathers off to fit in with his warmblood counter parts. I find it distressing that we must go to these lengths to be accepted as serious athletes, and is once again something I shall add to my mane-ifsto; equal rights for hairies: #myfeathersmychoice.

Continues below…

Hovis’ Friday Diary: ‘My mother has officially lost it’

Hovis is on the hunt for a campaign manger to assist him with his quest for world domination...

Talking of disappointment and hair, I would like to formally express my genuine disappointment at the behaviour of my supposedly lovely sharer this week. There is absolutely no need to haul me in from the field at some ungodly hour to ride and then, not content with positively wrecking my morning, take a picture of me looking half asleep and with bed head that makes Trump’s toupee look subtle. I look like a startled Smurf. My dapples make me look like mouldy bread, which is perched on a black electrocuted squirrel. It was hardly my finest hour and Aunty “I thought you loved me but clearly not” Emily is posting it all over my Facebook pages (pictured above). Any hope I have of attracting the equine equivalent of a mail-order bride via my brooding image on social media has disappeared faster than holiday feeling from teachers this week. Life is deeply unfair.

I’m off to practise brooding selfies and to rework my plan regarding my eventing career.

Laters,

Hovis

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