Dear diary,
Well, against the odds, and just like the human strangles epidemic, I’m still here. And possibly, in terms of economic measures, costing about as much as it too…
It’s still fair to say that’s things are very not good and the clock is ticking on my time on earth, but just like the mother-in-law at Christmas, I’ve not left yet and, if I have my way, won’t for as long as possible.
Last Friday saw the 2020 Chuckle Brothers reboot (erstwhile known as Herman the German Needle Man and Cool New Shoes Man) turn up to try another cunning plan after the first cunning plan failed more rapidly than one of mother’s diets. This plan involved them designing a bespoke shoe for my poorly foot and then CNSM making it from scratch wearing a welding mask, while Herman gazed at him admiringly and mother rolled her eyes more than dice in a Las Vegas casino. It was like some very badly made remake of Flashdance. Just with no dancing and no flashing. Something for which I am eternally grateful…
After making and then fitting something that looked like a cross between the Batman symbol and a ninja death star, bodgeit and scarper left, leaving mother looking stunned and oddly quiet — although that could just have been shock over both the bill and how much ogling of CNSM’s derriere Herman had been doing. I decided therefore to cheer her up I would try and make it at least 50% of the way through the weekend without requiring the services of one of Herman’s harem. Because you know, I’m nice like that.
By Sunday, to be fair, my foot was very definitely sore and I couldn’t even summon up the enthusiasm to whinny to her when she arrived to feed us all at stupid o’clock in the morning. Which was, with hindsight, a mistake as she spent the next hour sobbing about how she knew my time was up because I hadn’t whinnied. Realising I had accidentally triggered DEFCON 4 I thus shouted my head off for the rest of the day if so much as the barn cat walked past — in fact, you could almost say I shouted myself horse. Bada bish! Thank you, I am available for socially distanced weddings and Turkey funerals — which will, mark my words, be the way around the Christmas dinner problem…
Thus, it was a very sombre groundhog day on Monday when yet again, CNSM and Herman reconvened with a panda-like mother (fat, fluffy, white face, black eyes, looks quite cuddly but liable to rip your face off with zero notice). So, the shoe came back off again and my foot became the most photographed appendage after a Kardashian’s arse. Phone calls were made to the guys at Zippy’s house, more X-rays were taken, joints were tapped, samples were taken and ideas were debated, while mother looked as increasingly suicidal as Trump’s tax accountant. In the end, the people with the veterinary degrees have decided I have traumatic laminitis in that foot resulting from the abscess and Kevin the Keratoma, with the prognosis looking bleaker than a November naturists convention in Siberia. Acting on a gut instinct (and that shouldn’t be underestimated — have you seen the size of her gut?), the blubbership has also asked CNSM to cut a window in the front of my hoof wall in front of where the inner hole of Hovis is.
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Continued below…
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The upshot of it all is I am now officially on a deadline to show some sign of improvement, otherwise this is my final chapter. Now, as an ending, to be honest, I had sort of had something a little bit more dramatic in mind, such as shuffling off my mortal coil mid-servicing of a mercurial mare or selflessly saving a plethora of Pony Clubbers from the predators of the puddles, or even a final showdown between me and the yellow perils. A brilliant bang to bow out on not a rather limp(ing) last line, so as it stands (mainly on three legs), I’m about as happy as a porcupine on a bouncy castle.
So, I’m off to try and work on an alternative ending, but I leave you with this thought; why do equine training locations have cafés? Do you not ever sit there munching on your burger and ponder if you’re eating a slow learner? Just a thought…
Laters,
Still hoppy 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.
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