It’s day 15,978 of the human strangles epidemic; hope is disappearing faster than human waistlines, human-free days are a distant memory for many, while others struggle to remember which one their human is, discerning only by the colour food bucket they carry. The horse council for equine rights is lobbying the Hague for excessive bathing to be classified in the same way as water boarding (they’ve obviously seen my mother washing my forelock), and that any lungeing which incurs a circle tariff higher than 50 should be banned with immediate effect.
Social media rages with huge debates — no, not the frankly boring to ride or not to ride question — but things far more divisive in nature:
Which human equestrian star really baked the better cake?
If AP had been racing fit would he have won the 5km run?
Should Ben Hobnob ever be allowed out in public again after THAT dance?
And:
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Did that Baskin Robins bird really feed her fella to a feline? Was it Ggrrrreeeaaaatttt?
These, peoples, are the serious issues to be discussed. Well, that and the small issue of people discussing my weight on my Facebook pages the other day like I’m some sort of a) prized bullock (and yes, I meant to use the U and not the O) or b) celebrity face of a failed diet craze. Can I just point out most of you humans are going to come off box rest unable to remember what your feet look like and unable to sustain a trot for more than two minutes without needing CPR, thus none of you, with the possible exception of the Wicks, are in a position to pass judgement on my manly physique as I cruise around mother like a muscled shark circling a fully blubbered walrus. As I proved, I can sustain an unasked for canter around the mothership for longer than she can swear at me without repeating herself, and since her vocabulary contains more expletives than the average Quentin Palomino film, then you can probably get a handle on how fit I am — and how much I listen to my mother…
The fact I’m only supposed to be trotting and walking to build fitness is a small irrelevance — I am only thinking of Herman the German Needleman and how long it’s been since I saw him last, although to be fair, with the current human obsession with measuring temperatures, I’m not sure my derriere would thank me for risking its violation…
While we’re on the subject of my Facebook pages, I would also like to correct the misinformation propagated by she-who-likes-to-tell-tales-taller-than-she-is-which-isn’t-hard-as-she’s-a-short-fat-arse. The other day on perambulating across my field in a mature and measured fashion, I failed to spot the boss lady’s son near the greenhouse. The mothership may claim that I had a) been told this and b) had grunted some sort of affirmation, but a) I usually tune out everything mother says until all I can hear is “blah blah blah”, and b) I possibly had wind. As such, the sudden realisation upon exiting the field entrance that we were not in fact, as previously thought, alone, resulted in my involuntary ninja-like reactions kicking in and executing moves that show Darwin was indeed right and only the fittest shall survive. I was not, as reported by the maligning mothership, acting like a large cartoon dog and leaping into her arms like a damsel in distress. Nor did I, as again reported with as much accuracy as the Daily Fail, fail to acknowledge the presence of a large red tractor, despite her apparently telling me it was parked outside the house. I merely allowed it to be lulled into a false sense of security that I was walking towards it with the unsuspecting nature of a 20-year-old male near Joan Collins, before affecting an escape and evade move which would have the SAS in tears. Indeed, mother herself was in floods, but only because I accidentally flattened her into a conifer tree and then stood on a dead pigeon. War is tough and there will always be casualties — although in my defence, the pigeon was already dead before I stood on it. Either that or was really really good at playing sleeping lions — in which case, ooopsy…
Anyway, I’m off to hide from mother and Aunty Em who have apparently joined something called the pole club. I’m not sure what horrifies me the most — the idea of having to pick my feet up or the idea that this is their extracurricular way of paying off my vets bills…
Laters,
Hovis
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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.
