Hovis’ Friday Diary: ‘Our little motley crew are going our separate ways’

Dear Diary

As the human strangles epidemic continues to out stay its welcome more than the in-laws at Christmas, I have been dealing with more pressing matters. After over 30 years service to equines in her care, the boss lady has decided that having looked after me she has reached the pinnacle of her career and she wants to go out on that high so she is retiring.

This means we are all now on the hunt for a new home and new slaves to pander to my every desire. This appears to be stressing the mothership (although to be fair the woman stresses over which glove goes on which hand so don’t read too much into it – on a good day her capacity to handle anything is thimble sized) and has led to some very interesting differences of opinions as to the key criteria by which decisions on a new abode will be made.

My list is very simple; Grass, copious amounts of moral-less mares and ideally no stressage arena. Mother however, as usual, overcomplicates things with her list being five times longer than mine and involving things such as services, turn out regimes and whether the patron has three veterinary degrees. I am assuming that this is due to the high maintenance blonde one and his PMT, as opposed to any suggestion that it might be down to what is unfairly known on the yard as the “Hovis health histrionics”. Now I can understand how those with an IQ in single digits may not be able to differentiate between my philanthropic endeavours to ensure that Herman could retile his swimming pool every year and the hypochondriac tendencies of lesser breeds such as

Anyway, it’s fair to say she has been running around the county looking at yards and trying to avoid anyone figuring out who the famous equine is for whom she is house hunting. What can I say peoples, I iz modest and like to be low-key, no fuss and no fan-fare. Any reports emanating from Aunty Em about me standing in the middle of the field the other night having what was unfairly described as “a diva like meltdown the likes of which Mariah could only aspire to” are both unjust and over exaggerated. I was merely performing a public service in ensuring the local area had realised it was raining – you know in case they’d accidentally left anything outside like furniture, or washing or here’s a novel suggestion – ME!

What this all does mean is that our little motley crew are starting to go our separate ways, the first of whom has been Bob. Now I know he was about as much use as a wingman as boobies on a slow worm, but he was a nice bloke and was always useful for sacrificial purposes when the tractors of terror were about. I will miss licking his dinner off his moustache through the bars, but not so much his kicking of the door which as a habit was about on a par with mother’s insistence that I carry my own head on the scale of nought to really chuffing annoying.

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Carol is an experienced journalist and editor, who is also a passionate amateur rider and dedicated horse owner, having ridden since childhood. She has a particular interest in the emotional well-being and ethical training of horses, alongside veterinary matters, having garnered extensive first-hand experience of numerous equine health conditions through more than 30 years of horse ownership.