Hi Friends! It’s me Mossy, and I’m back from my holiday. I have lots of news and Mum says she’s very proud of me for the progress I’ve made socially. The last time you heard from me, I had been excluded from the herd by the mares. Mum says this is because I go in like a ‘wrecking ball’ and act like I still have my boy bits that were removed when I was younger, but I don’t know what she means.

In the past, that would have been that, and the mares would have missed out of the honour of my company. But this year, as well as the horses in the field, there was a donkey. His name was Ned and after the mares unfairly excluded me, I teamed up with Ned, mostly out of desperation but credit where credit’s due, that donkey knows how to get an unfairly excluded pony horse a second chance with some overreacting mares. Turns out the mares much prefer it when new pony horses keep their distance, wait their turn at the hay feeder and don’t act like the mares should worship him. Who knew?! But that did indeed get me a second chance, and I made it into the herd. At this point, Mum says I dropped Ned ‘like a hot potato.’ Now, I don’t know what a hot potato is, but Ned didn’t want to join the herd with me so we were both good.

Because I had been integrated into the herd for the first time, Mum wasn’t sure if I’d be good to come back in from my holiday. Every other holiday I’ve had, I’ve been so desperate for company that I was happy to come back in. The last time, even when I called to the herd after being caught, none of them called back to me. Mum found that heartbreaking – she actually cried. I know they didn’t realise what they were missing. This time though, they were calling back to me. I bet they miss me now.

As always, I was a perfect angel for travelling. As soon as the van started moving, I stopped calling until we were two hundred metres from the yard and then I had to announce my imminent return to everybody there. I have my own stable back again but with two new, grey neighbours. They’re both big enough to look over the walls so, of course, they had to get a good look at me. I’m sure they’d already heard about me and how amazing I am.

That was a couple of weeks ago and since then it’s been busy! I got my toes trimmed and brand new shoes, then I got my teeth done. Again, I was an angel. Then I got my vaccinations where I had intentions not to be an angel – sometimes I freak out about needles – but Auntie Nicola and Vet Katie were too fast for me. The vaccinations are now not just recorded in my passport but on Katie’s phone. This proved to be a little tricky because of something called ‘bad signal’ so took a bit longer than normal. I also had to come out of my stable for a photo. Seriously, there’s paparazzi everywhere. Vet Katie also watched me do my trots and canters and said my legs are very good for a 16-year-old but for Mum to keep getting me regular massages for my back and neck once I’m back in work, as I am an ‘older’ performance pony. Personally, I think I’m in my prime but am happy with as many massages as I can get.

I’m currently on the walker every day until Auntie Nicola starts riding me again – or until I begin stopping the walker with my butt which I do when I get bored – and then Mum and Anna will put me back in the carriage.

Speaking of Anna, she drove, and won, her first event. Not with me because I was still on my holiday but with my friend Lulu, who has gone to Wales and France and The Netherlands with me before. Mum was very proud of her. That was an arena event that Mum helped organise. She’ll be helping to organise a two-day event in the summer. Mum does all the computer parts of organising these events, and then other friends do the building parts and the feeding the volunteers parts. She also loves decorating obstacles. Mum was surprised at how much she enjoys organising these events, not quite as much as driving, but pretty close. She really likes seeing other drivers and their teams enjoy the events.

As she’s getting older and her body is finding it harder to cope with everything that comes with driving, she says she’s happy that there are other aspects of driving that she knows she’ll enjoy after I retire. She’s hoping that won’t be for at least another 5 or 6 years and isn’t certain yet whether she’ll retire with me but she’s less afraid of the thought of that now she knows there’s other ways of being involved in driving that she genuinely enjoys. For now though, she’s resolved to enjoy every moment of driving with me. She says that the past few years, she’s been focussed on the wrong things, and doesn’t want to look back when she does retire and regret not taking the time to enjoy our time together in the moment more. She says this is something she sees in other drivers too which isn’t surprising as so many are competitive and often put everything they have (physically and financially) into their driving.  But most of us are amateurs so it would be a shame to not enjoy the moments as they happen and not just when we look back on them.

Us horses are much better at this sort of thing than our humans are; you could learn a lot from us! We trust ourselves more than humans do too, I think. We’re less vulnerable to things going wrong simply because we don’t worry about them happening beforehand; instead, we know that when something does happen our instincts will kick in and we will deal with the situation. We also trust our guts more than humans do, maybe because our minds aren’t as cluttered with thousands of little thoughts all the time; I’m especially good at this – see my previous diaries about how I protect myself against serial killers and pony-eating dinosaurs. We’re also more adaptable and flexible, probably because we don’t create idealised futures and plans upon plans upon plans in our minds like you do. There really is a lot you could all learn from us horses in general, and your pal Mossy in particular. Anyway, have a think on that and I’ll see you in my next diary entry!