Last week we talked about equine rights and it’s a topic I am going to stick with this week; because it’s here. THAT time of year. Where one can only assume that the heady combination of excitement and very dodgy alcoholic drinks (I mean, what in all hell’s creation is eggnog?) creates a sufficient synapse misfire that you mistake your horse for a tree. I mean any other month of the year and muddling over half a tonne of moving creature with immovable leafy things would have you under observation for concussion faster than you can say “severe head injury”. But it seems at Kissmuss all rules are thrown out of the window faster than mother’s diet on a Cadbury World tour…
I know I have talked to you all about it before, but it appears, like with most things in life, my words of wisdom fall on deaf ears. You see, being treated like four-legged foliage, trailed in tinsel and made to wear all manner of “hilarious” headgear is degrading. Every time we are made to prance down the road like Rudolph’s rouge relative, a small part of our soul dies inside. How would you fancy seeing flashing lights, having your hopes soar that finally they’ve come to take mother away, only to realise that it is in fact emanating from your derriere? And peoples, when you’re as fine a muscled specimen as I am then that’s quite a square area; I look like I have Piccadilly Circus as a posterior. I stand still for too long and Sachi and Sachi are going to sell advertising space on my ass…
In an age of increasingly wonderful ways to be comfortable about who you are, I’ve equally got to come forth and say I do not identify as being some sort of stag; stud yes. Stag no. I have no desire to shake my head and have appendages doing jazz hands between my ears. I’m a badass, not bloody Bambi.
But I can see that this impassioned plea to stop putting your equines (note equines, not elves — key difference peoples) through this yearly horror has no affect. You are so conditioned to the tradition of tinsel torture that you see no wrong in it — sort of like Trump and his “tan”. You are immune to shattered street cred and punctured pride, and thus, to get you to see my point of view (and that of every long-suffering equine on the planet) I need to change tack faster than my mate Nigel.
So, let’s talk about revenge. And how it’s a dish best served cold. You know in spring and autumn, when your normally mild-mannered steed suddenly turns into a piaffing Puff the Magic Dragon because a worm popped its head out of the ground three counties over? When you all have to go up bit strengths to “one step below barbed wire” in order to have any semblance of control or hope in hell of stopping before you set a new land speed record for Lands End to John-a-Goats, because a postbox has the audacity to not have moved since the last time you rode past? When every person in the village is aware that your steed is a bit “fresh” as you trail apologies and expletives behind you like smoke from the Red Sparrows while half passing across the vicar’s lawn due to a sudden previously unseen aversion to dog collars? Yeah ,well about that…
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The first rule of flight club is we don’t talk about flight club, but there’s only one way this vicious cycle can end, so I’m going to break our equine code of silence and let you in on a secret. That’s not spring grass or autumn high jinks. That’s payback for making us look like elfing ejiits. Now I can see you don’t believe me and are wondering why we wait. Why we don’t exact revenge at the time of the Kissmuss cruelty? The answer is simple: where’s the fun in that? So, next time you’re dressing your steed up like an extra from National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, “blinging” his or her bridle with baubles and tucking tinsel in their tail, just remember; they’re privately plotting a freestyle freshness Friday to the tune of “Staying Alive” in their head.
So, like an equine Yoda told you, now I have — it’s up to you what you do with this knowledge. But if I were you, I would ask yourself one question. Is it worth it?
Laters,
Ho-Ho-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.
