Dear diary,
My name is Hovis and I am holy. Well my hoof is. I am Sir Hovis of the Holey Hoof; with a name sake to bread and a foot resembling Swiss cheese all I need is some pickle and I’m the quintessential British sandwich. Mind you, since mother is always in a pickle and to many viewed as a sandwich short of a picnic then maybe we’re already there?!
So, what has caused me to have a newly religious foot? Well Cool New Shoes Man came to visit at the beginning of the week and isn’t happy still with my foot — you must remember the abscess was so deep and the excavation so cavernous that potholers kept arriving to have a look. He’s convinced that the abscess itself is healing but my foot is still a bit yucky and he’s loathe to cover it up lest my foot sweat, rot and then fall off. Which would, to be fair, induce a day of national mourning of the like only seen when Wrong Direction went their separate ways…
So, in a fit of cunning brilliance (or drug induced madness) he’s put a breathing hole in my hoof: sort of the podiatry equivalent of a whale’s blow hole. Mum looked somewhat aghast while I, personally, do have concerns that mice may view this as the height of luxury accommodation and move in. He assures mother this was in fact a stroke of genius and that no he hasn’t been sniffing the Kevin Bacon again. And by that I do mean the hoof ointment and not the actual Kevin Bacon; although to be fair, with CNSM you can never be entirely sure…
The new foot hole means I can get back to work and crack on with operation get fit and ready for THE call. Which still hasn’t come. To be honest, while I keep up my show of nervous anticipation, I am now resigning myself to the fact that it’s not going to happen. Hope is fading faster than mother’s faculties and I am facing the harsh reality that I’m just too much power for any of them to cope with. With hindsight I should have trotted slowly and with the appearance of a yard brush rammed up my derriere rather than power housing down the long side with the wonderful Mary King doing an admirable job of trying to get me under control while my wafting feathers paid homage to the power of my stride. I should have cantered with the boring slow collectedness of Tortilla Chip himself rather than sticking my head between my legs and demonstrating that I can do both a handstand and a Mexican wave — at the same time… The following day I should have kept the demonstration of lateral work to the speed of Charlotte-thingie-in-a-garden and Viagra rather than showing that I can do lateral at the speed of Seabiscuit.
Continued below…
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Hovis’ Friday diary: riding me is like hanging on to a hurricane
I know now that I made a massive mistake in hinting at the pure power that sits under this unassuming athlete’s body. I’ve scared them, haven’t I? That’s what this is: fear. I sensed it in the other horses in the warm-up ring — Andrew Nicholson’s steed looked like it had swallowed not just the wormer but the syringe too when Mary and I were warming up — and now it’s infected the riders too. I get it, I really do but I thought the Brits were made of sterner stuff than this…
So, I’m off to avoid house hunting mice, my whip wielding mother and to cry (manfully of course) for the likely loss of an eventing career that would have put British Eventing on the map.
Laters,
Heartbroken 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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