Today marks a whole week of me managing to keep the resin in my foot — something I feel should be celebrated, possibly with a public holiday, but certainly with some sort of symbolism? I’m thinking perhaps of the burning of £10 notes within effigies of a farrier’s forge while the participants wear blonde wigs and wail loudly? Or the exchanging of gifts of gaffer tape and vet wrap between fellow horse owners? We could call it the Hovis Hole Holiday and celebrate across the world with a day off work (and here I mean equines not humans — afterall, you have to pay for said holiday). Perhaps on the morning we could all arise and feign lameness in one giant equine expression of solidarity? I mean, peoples, this idea has legs — admittedly three of which that might not pass a five-stage vetting — but legs nonetheless! Who is with me?!
Alas, the downside to a farrier-free week means that the mothership has insisted that operation lose-the-idea-you’re-retired-you-four-legged-bank-balance-draining-pain-in-the-posterior (I think she needs to working on snappier titles) is now underway. Now, because as yet I don’t have a new saddle — for those of you who don’t remember mine was stolen by unsavoury individuals while I was at Your Horse Live back in November, raising funds for Bransby Horses — I have to walk with mother in hand. Which is a NIGHTMARE. I have been accused on multiple occasions of having a walk which displays the enthusiasm of those walking the green mile (which I don’t think is a lane with grass on either side) and the pace of a funeral procession, but still I can walk a hell of a lot quicker that the dumpy limpy one. Which means I end up having to walk in circles around her to give her time to catch up as her stride length is about akin to an overweight Shetland wearing hobbles.
Interestingly, although not surprisingly, mother doesn’t see this the same way (remember what I said about perspectives last week — yep, here we go again…) and spends a lot of time robustly discussing the unmarried status of my parents and my future career in financial services while trying to tug me back into a straight line — which works about as well as trying to plait fog with a wooden spoon…
Admittedly I do get bored quite quickly with the “walking” mode of locomotion and do have a tendency to favour a more enthusiastic jogging-esque mode of movement. This in turn tends to further exacerbate the length of my stride vs mother’s problem and has led to a few scenes, which may have looked to the untrained eye as though I was dragging my mother down the lane like a kite in a force 10 gale. Only to an untrained eye mind you; the furrows left by her feet in the mud are merely testament to the fact she needs remedial shoeing and nothing to do with the speed of my forward trajectory. Honest…
Though talking of forward trajectory, Barbie Boy was in trouble at the weekend, which amused me greatly — he had a touch of “la failure de brakes”, which to be fair we all have now and again (I am a frequent sufferer) and mini-mother was left singularly unamused. I may have actively encouraged him to show a bit more “oomph” in a chat the day before when we discussing what everyone likes, so he felt I had led him astray — I pointed out that fact he took advice from me merely demonstrated that he is a natural blonde…
Anyway, I’m off to hide from the mothership and the endless in-hand walking, which is about as exciting as listening to the dictionary being read out by a monotonal man from Macclesfield…
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.
