By the time you read this I may have perished, murdered by a roaming rebel band of bouncy castles and trampolines as we reach day 10,056 of the storms. Hope now is a distant memory, as is styled hair, while starvation is likely due to eating now relying upon your hay hunting skills as it blows like high speed Usain Bolt-esque tumble weed across the yard and surrounding fields. Hay hunting packs have now been formed with the mares of the pride coming together in aggressive formation to trap the weaker and slower moving haylage.
Breathing is only possible if you adopt the backwards movement of an Italian tank driver, while tall tales are now being told to the young of a golden time when one didn’t have a wet backside due to rugs which actually remained in position. Kite flying is now listed as the most dangerous sport in the world, with “walking with an umbrella” coming in a close second, whilst training for this years’ Total Wipe out is being conducted at muck heap ramps across the land.
Poo picking is about to be deemed a specialist activity with only those who are able to fork up without incurring a negligent discharge now being certified to undertake such endeavours. Al fresco rug changing has been banned by the RSPCA due to evidence of the trauma caused by “blow back” issues, whilst the BHS has issued new guidelines to owners regarding the imminent outlawing of exercise sheets due to concerns for public health and safety. The UK horse council has been convened with the ritual sacrificing of Shetland ponies being considered under emergency measures to placate the angry gods.
It’s fair to say that life pre the winds of hell is a distant memory as are bottom hairs that don’t move independently of the rest of ones anatomy…
Despite every trip outside being two staggered windswept steps away from certain death, she-who-has-the-survival-skills-of-hand-reared-lemming has insisted that operation-you’re-not-retired-you-lazy-lasagne-on-legs (see previous notes on mother’s lack of ability to name operations to normal conventions) continues. This has led to me running around the school with my eyes closed against the slipstream whilst my tail is driven up my back passage like the wind down the M1.
This is accompanied by mother screaming “track” at me as I manfully attempt to guess which side the track is even on by the direction my mane is wafting in the cross winds. I did briefly attempt to express my dissatisfaction at the sheer stupidity of her actions the other day by turning my substantial rear end to face the tsunami of incoming frozen rain, but mother certainly didn’t “let it go” and while I’m not 100% sure if the corresponding sting on my rump was a hail stone or the business end of a lunge whip, I had little desire to repeat so thus threw in the towel like the Wilder camp…
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On Wednesday Aunty Em managed to catch a brief let-up in Mother Nature’s water-boarding and leapt upon me faster than a fat fighter on a delivery driver from Krispy Kreme and thus I did my first ridden session since last November. It’s fair to say I was underwhelmed whereas Aunty Em needs her satnav re-tuning as we seemed to do a lot of circles, but on the plus side neither of us died so it was, on balance, a reasonably good attempt.
Since the mothership is in Mum-bye from tonight for a week, I have at least been saved the horror that is mother channelling my supposed pal Mr Nester and doing 20,000,000 transition in 30 minutes but I suspect it won’t be long. She had a nerve block into her spine last week which is supposed to make “things better”, but unless they’ve invented a talent shot then, personally, I’m not hopeful…
To be fair though unless someone appeases the huffy harlet that is mother nature then it is doubtful any of us will be around to do any stressage – at least not in the same postcode as each other. So, if any of you have Shetlands or any other form of pony-proportioned peace offering, then please sacrifice them to the She-witch to save the rest of us. It’s SOS time – Shetland or Survival: There is no choice.
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.
