Dear diary,

I am deeply concerned. I think I’ve been a bamboozled. See, I thought that this expensive injection of stem cells thing into my foot was to turn me back into a jumping machine such that me and my showjumping and eventing pals could team up once more and ride together into the sunset. I was pretty sure that being the tight arse she is, mum hadn’t promised Aunty Emily’s body parts to the bank manager just to have me able to ponce about the block, so I was absolutely sure a deal had been struck with the British teams to take a spot for the next big parties and possibly for a whizz around Burghley. I have thus been waiting patiently for anything resembling a jump to appear — not least because frankly there’s been too much coverage of other eventing Clydesdales of late and I need to remind the world that while I am both an advocate and indeed ambassador of the all-round brilliance that is my fellow feathered friends, I am the only one with half of the British eventing squad in my phone book.

It’s fair, however, to say I’ve been waiting for this about as long as I’ve been waiting for mum to lose weight and I’m starting to think the two things are about as likely… I get the fact I’ve been out of action for a while, these stem cell things are not a miracle cure and we need to go slowly, slowly catchy monkey, yadda, yadda and all that. But seriously? Peoples if the monkey is this slow, then I hate to rain on your parade, but I think it’s dead.

Then you examine the rest of the evidence:

Evidence piece #1: Aunty Emily is doing nothing but ride me in circles; 10m, 20m, full sides of the school, nothing but bloody circles. And don’t even get me started on transitions. My mate Mr Nester has SO much to answer for with his love of transitions.

Evidence piece #2: The boss lady has got on me more and more of late. Now at first this was both exciting and mildly terrifying; exciting because in her day she was a good eventer and maybe this was the signs of operation come back for both of us, and terrifying because I’ve never known someone so small have such powerful thighs. Resistance is futile. My reaction now is positively Pavlovian — she looks at me and I drop into an outline. And for those of you who don’t know what Pavlovian is — I’m not talking about deserts… However, coming back to the boss lady, it was also pointed out to me by my lady love (the older one — there are so many these days…) that she is a pure stressage rider these days

Evidence piece #3: My mate Charlotte What’s-her-face-in-a-garden in coming to Your Horse is Alive, pretty much to see me I suspect after meeting me at Windsor. She’s also bringing Viagra. Let’s ponder why? Is it to meet his fans (as is the official line) or is it more likely that as her friend and mentor Mr Nester put Nip and Tick Shop next to me all those years ago for advice on how to up his game, then she’s hoping I can do the same for Viagra and her newer prancing ponies? Just a different perspective peoples, different perspective…

Evidence piece #4: The world number one stressage rider is coming to the UK to come to Your Horse is Alive. Now one could point out this is because it’s an amazing event with a huge number of people attending. Which would be fair. But she’s not been before, so why now? Huuummmm?

Continued below…

Hovis’ Friday diary: you take your kicks where you can get them

Hovis has taken issue with mother nature and is looking forward to an event

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