It’s a day so far into this human strangles epidemic that I can’t actually remember what humans look like without grazing muzzles on. Across the land grooming parlours have been re-opening so some humans have managed to be brought back from the edge of feraldom and had their manes and tails tamed into some semblance of order. What truly amazes me is how many of them aren’t naturally palominos after all. Who knew?
Meanwhile my fight back from the brink continues with yet more walking with the blubbership on board, which is about as exciting as watching Barbie boy scratch his derriere on the water drinker of an evening — and with about as much chance of getting very wet; mother waterworks are a tad unpredictable at the minute.
Strangely enough, “unpredictable” was one of the politer terms she used for me the other day after we nearly parted company during one of our “slow and steady” plods around the school. To be fair, it was her fault. As most things usually are. I’d heard the helicopter long before she started tensing up like Wesley Snipes’ accountant during a tax audit, and had ignored it as strangely enough, I have seen it a fair few times. This time however, as mother started gripping with her legs like an octopus who doesn’t like to share, while breathing like an asthmatic hamster on a treadmill, I was mildly concerned. Not because of the air ambulance — see above, like duh — but more for fear of mother feeling a bigger boob than usual for over-reacting like a Z list celebrity at the opening of an envelope.
Thus, after the helicopter had passed (without any incident) right above our collective heads, I waited until her legs had stopped gripping me like a Kardashian onto her pre-nup and then spooked violently sideways, before dashing off across the school at full-pelt.
I thought this would make her feel that her complete “panic and run” routine hadn’t been totally unjustified and thus, she would be grateful for saving her face in front of mini-mother, who had unfortunately (for the content of shiteventers at least) just stopped filming seconds beforehand. Instead my Eurofighter manoeuvre just proved how non-match fit she is, and she nearly went hurtling out of the side-door. Suffice to say that my ancestry, martial status of my parents, and my future career in banking were once again loudly and colourfully described as she hauled on the reins with the muscular fervour of a bell ringer. Upon womanfully pulling us to a halt without bursting too many blood vessels, she declared the session over (which wasn’t strictly true according to mini-mother’s Fitbit) and vaulted off me like Frankie Dettori. Well, if Frankie had been aged, in need of a zimmer-frame and lame…
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We have braved a few more walks this week in which her tolerance for my desire for her to carry my head appears to be waning more rapidly than my hopes of going to Toyoko this summer, and my boredom levels grow higher than mother’s debt mountain. I am therefore looking for fun things to spice proceedings up — all suggestions welcome.
I’m off to feign deafness in my summer field, which at least means it takes mother and Aunty E longer to come and catch me than they ride for simple pleasures peoples, simple pleasures…
Laters,
Hovis
P.S If you haven’t yet watched my videos from Your Horse is Virtually Alive then I think they’re still available (and free) to watch, so go and check it out!
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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.
