Hovis’ Friday diary: ‘He is small, ginger and Welsh…’

Dear diary,

You will all be pleased to know that I am still here, and that a visit from Herman The German Needle Man didn’t end in a choice of euthanasia on humane grounds – yes, that’s right, we decided to let Mother have another winter as well, but with a watching brief…

I did, however, have my hocks injected with magic slime resulting in two bald patches, which mother is going to have to figure out how to cover up before Your Horse is Alive (Crazy Self-Employed Lady did retry her suggestion of “blending my legs” which, bearing in mind we have only just recovered from the Mane Scalping of 2023, Mother politely declined).

Herman decided I needed knocking out – I didn’t see why, as I wasn’t going to move – and so with his usually crafty sleight of hand gave me a little prick and the next thing I knew Tweety Pie was requesting a flyby past my ears. I must stage a protest at this point that mother felt the need to post pictures of me slightly worst for wear, sniggering about my lightweight tendencies where drugs are concerned. Firstly, everyone knows that highly tuned athletes have less tolerance for drugs and alcohol than bigger, less athletic units, which probably explains why mother can out drink an Irish fisherman and secondly, it shows what an innocent I am, living a pure life, that I can’t deal with these things and thus take less la-la juice than a Shetland.

Anyways, all is fine, no nasty joint infections, a few days confined to barracks and we should see if it’s done anything in about four weeks. If not, apparently there is another drug which Herman suggested which is even more expensive than this one was and made mother go white quicker than the PM’s tailor when asked for receipts. The good news is with me burning through her bank balance with the gleeful abandonment of fat fighters in the shop at Cadbury World, she has less money for food and is actually looking a touch more svelte than normal. This will be handy if she has to lap dance her bank manager… again…

While Herman was there, he also took blood from the ginger ninja to check his girlie hormone levels for his PMT and commented all of us looked very slim, complimenting mother on her weight management. If I hadn’t have been smacked off my boobies I might have laughed out loud at that – mother couldn’t manage to figure out which way a lift is going if she had two guesses, its CSEL who is the meanie with food.

Talking of the pain in the posterior, some of you asked how him and mini-mother got on at their one-day event. Well, it sort of ended up being less ODE and more OED (one event day). The stressage went ok, which doesn’t surprise me as he is a poncy princess with flicky toes, which combined with his pretty Barbie looks does tend to win over the judges. Unfortunately the warm-up for the showjumping was less warm-up and more survival of the fittest, which, bearing in mind they’re only small and mini-mother lacks mother’s stridency in asserting herself, they really didn’t warm up, mini-mother got herself in a total state, and as such he slammed his brakes on at the first fence and she did a detailed inspection of the filler. I have to point out that if she’d ridden me this wouldn’t have happened as a) I am big enough that no one would have come near us in the warm-up b) there is more of me to hang on to and c) I have never refused anything in my life.

They went out for a lesson on Wednesday night and it appears he has now decided that this might be a good party trick, so an hour of stopping this ensued with the instructor getting increasingly cross with him and mother grinding her teeth into dust. I have tried to point out that as a tactic, this is about as sensible as using a mane dryer in the bath, but what can I say? He is small, ginger and Welsh…

Anyways, I am off to try to figure out how to grow back hair ahead of Your Horse is Alive and try to instil some common sense into the pint-sized pain in the posterior.

Laters,

Hovis

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