Dear diary,
So, I want to talk about perspectives and how, depending on which one you use to view the world, it can massively impact how you feel.
Take for example the mothership and I; I think it’s very fair to say that we have quite a different perspective on a lot of things and as a result, she is a seething mass of nerves and angst, whereas I am the epitome of calm and serenity. I shall give you an example to illustrate my point, which I’m pretty sure you will all understand and neigh indeed side with.
So last week I told you that I’d had a slight “oops” moment and managed to sort of “dislodge” the very expensive resin that is protecting the hole of Hovis from foreign invaders. Cool New Shoes Man was down south lecturing junior shoes people on how to be good enough to shoe equine royalty, so a very nice Local Shoes Man was dispatched to help Herman the German Needle Man to refill the aforementioned costly cavern and get me back on track. This caused much angst to mother, as from her perspective I had managed to potentially re-infect my foot and undo all the good work to-date. I saw it more as giving the local farrier community the same wonderful opportunity to schmooze with the stars as I give CNSM on a regular basis — see what I mean about different perspectives?
To be fair, I sort of got her point however when a day later Barbie Boy decided that he too would inject money into the local economy by throwing a shoe only put on by CNSM on the same day as my resin, which resulted in mother having to grovel to nice Local Shoes Man to come out and do his thing while CNSM went to see the vicar — I don’t know if this was about his upcoming wedding or an attempt to save his soul, but either way he was indisposed.
Anyways, by Friday night we had both had our foot foibles fixed and all was fine with the world. Well, briefly anyway…
On Saturday mother decided to let Barbie Boy and I loose in the same field together to see if we could be trusted to behave and thus, if we might be able to share a field without enough electric fence between us to separate Mexico and the USA. I briefly forgot underneath the long eyelashes, the blonde mane and the girlie rug is actually a boy, which to be fair, the dude might have reminded me of rather forcefully. My bad.
I did try and cover up my little mishap with manful attempts at playing “I am the stallion” but it’s a bit hard when you can’t actually decide if the guy is rearing or not because either way he doesn’t clear your nostrils. Giving up on that idea, we switched to a bit of touch rugby, which he seemed to think meant we had to slap each other while screaming like Lady Gaga having a bikini wax, at which point mother started to look slightly alarmed.
After I decided that his game of slaps was getting tedious, I mooched off and impressed the ladies with a demonstration of my high power, “I taught Viagra everything he knows” trot, while they looked on in awe and mother sobbed hysterically to the boss lady that she can’t replicate it under saddle. Barbie Boy went back to eating hay and mother decided that was quite enough and brought us both in, whereupon I had the news broken that just because I don’t have a saddle, doesn’t mean the holiday camp is continuing. What this translated as was mother and I walking round and round in very very large circles for 20 minutes while she extolled the virtue of poncy pretty pony’s schooling and stressage capabilities: apparently unlike me, he actually knows what working in a outline looks like. Personally, I think it’s less schooling and more self-preservation — that’s the only head position he can use where he can actually see past his fringe…
Anyway, to be perfectly honest with you, I wasn’t massively impressed with this in-hand malarkey, let alone in-hand flat work while being told that effeminate face is better at everything than I am. My ears hurt. So, come Sunday I decided to prove that there many things I am much better than him at — not least my philanthropic fiscal support of the education of future generations; in this case Herman’s offspring. Au revoir resin attempt numero deux, bonjour Ben the Blacksmith and hasta la vista to mother’s Visa. Fair to say, mother didn’t see it my way (see what I mean about perspectives?), and spent the hour it took her to fetch me in, thoroughly clean, scrub, disinfect, pack and dress the re-opened hole in my foot discussing in some alarming level of detail how my demise was going to occur. All I can say is that I am now under no illusions how creative my mother can be and that perhaps shows like CSI ought to think about the learning they give to hard up homicidal horse owners…
Continued below…
Hovis’ Friday diary: mother has just about held on to her hair and sanity…
Hovis explains his week of ups and downs
Subscribe to Horse & Hound magazine today – and enjoy unlimited website access all year round
With this in mind I am going to try to get to at least next week before requiring the services of either Herman or CNSM; I’m too young to be put into the new concrete of a multi-storey in Milton Keynes.
Laters,
Hovis
PS. On a serious note, thank you all for your support to our attempts to raise money for the Australian wild-fires. You have all been utterly incredible helping us smash our target into smithereens — from the bottom of my heart (and my hoof) thank you so very, very much.
Would you like to read Horse & Hound’s independent journalism without any adverts? Join Horse & Hound Plus today and you can read all articles on HorseandHound.co.uk completely ad-free
