Horse and Hound Columnist

That's miserable reading. I don't hate my ponies - I don't think I ever have. They've done things that annoyed me, but that's not the same as "hating" them. I'm not a complete fluffy bunny, but reading that makes me bloody sad :(
 
One of the reasons I stopped buying the magazine many years ago, very poor quality journalism and fluffy articles, both are trying to be humerous, one comes over as an inept mother and the young new showing blogger as a sarcastic, priveliged teen
 
Tiddlypom said:
Another cringe making offering in this week's edition of H&H. Oh dear.

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It’s awful, the pony did not choose to be laminitic.
I hope as Rabatsa as says it’s tongue in check but it’s not really funny and I suspect it’s supposed to be .
The child falling of thing you can bet your last dollar that some else spoiled their day to rescue her child .
People out hunting don’t tend to leave children or adults for that matter In the mud
If you don’t like looking after ponies don’t do it .
However in all fairness at the end of the a season I will look at hunters and think and even say to friends I am so over this now I can’t wait to see the backside of that horse disappearing up the field for three months .
Part of me is hitting myself over the head saying don’t be so grumpy but I just hate the whole tone of the column especially since I know hunting is full of extremely funny people .
 
I don't like this article, but at least the ponies are being cared for, even though the lady is having a jolly jape about how hard it is to have wonderful ponies at home, with apparently healthy kids and a huntsman husband, no apparent money worries, a busy social life. I mean, of course she has worries, we all do, and no one knows the ins and outs. But, on the face of it, she has an idyllic lifestyle.

TBH, for sooooo many years I longed to just ride, let alone have a pony or horse, and keeping them at home is something I have to keep pinching myself to believe I have achieved, even after 20 years of having them outside the back door. So yes, find it annoying that she does not realise how lucky she is in so many ways, but it does not anger / disgust / worry me.

The leaving of an injured child, on the floor, however, in the middle of nowhere, for that one I think she needs to take a long, hard look at herself. Never mind having a jolly jape writing about it.

I agree with another poster, who said if you take the horses and hunting out of it, it would very much be a social services investigation.

Imagine...

Rowdy family take kids out to the countryside. Force child to climb a wall even though child is protesting, shove child off the wall, see that they are injured (broke a tooth and are bleeding / crying), have a good laugh about it and drive off, leaving a pedal bike and bloodied child behind, because they don't want to miss the pub closing.

I think 99% of people would intervene in that situation.


ETA - I wish I could say I don't believe it to be true, but TBH, I do believe the essence of it. I also agree that she left someone else to spoil their day to pick the poor child up.
 
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I'm sure we've all had moments where we've thought, 'jesus christ, I WISH I didn't have horses' or even wished we didn't own a particular horse...but I'm not sure airing aforesaid mental dirty laundry in a national magazine in badly written prose is necessary and it's certainly not amusing.
It is absolutely reinforcing negative stereotypes about spoiled rich horsey people which is awful. Let's face it, most of us are broke and work our arses off so these animals (which we want to spend time with) can have good lives. And those who want their children to share in the delight these animals can bring work even harder and put an awful lot of time and care into making sure that it's an enjoyable experience for both animal, child and parent - rather than something done for playground kudos gossiping to others, which is what this smacks of to me.
If she genuinely hates the ponies sell them to someone who will appreciate them; but when you've got something which is, after all, fundamentally a luxury, it seems indescribably petty to then moan about that luxury in the column which pays for it....
 
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Goldenstar said:
People out hunting don’t tend to leave children or adults for that matter In the mud
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Well ..... for many many years I was unofficial "sweeper" for our hunt, because I was looking after my own clients and ended up rescuing a lot of other people as well. On one memorable occasion, I was on a 17.2 five year old, pootling along at the back on a day when I didn't have any clients out. I jumped out of a wood into a big field, to see everyone standing around chatting during a check, and a small muddy boy on his feet, valiantly trying to get back onto his pony, who was spinning round and flatly refusing to let him.

I looked around, expecting to see someone helping him, but no, all too busy chatting (whilst watching him!!), so I got off the horse-mountain, legged him back up on the pony, at which point they all took off out of a gate at the far end, leaving me (I'm not very tall) hanging on to an enormous bouncy horse, with no hope of getting on from the ground, and no hope of getting him to stand next to the jump for me to climb on.

Then one of the whips came along, and being young and athletic, he hopped off, gave me a leg up, hopped back on his horse, and off we went, grumbling about selfish *rses who would leave a child to struggle like that ...
 
I was a subscriber to the H&H for years, I literally read everything in it, the sale reports, even the stuff I had no interest in, because I wanted to be informed. I stopped when the was quite obvious the reporting did not reflect what was actually going on in the horse world with abuses that were open secrets not investigated, and they fact they only use a small pool of people, who sing the same song, I exclude PH, from this, to ask for comment.
You do have to wonder what the editorial team are thinking. I know horse owners to quote a media group, we are 'considered a high net worth audience.', but the majority of people I know live on fairly ordinary incomes, and it often the choices they make, like do I have a new duvet, or does the horse get a new rug, inform their spending. Which they then explain that neddy looks lovely in his new rug but I hardly ever see my duvet, because I am a sleep and it will last another six months or its will get warmer soon.
So the magazine gets lighter, and the content get less relevant.

I wonder if the writer realises the seriousness of what she has written in the terms of safe guarding in a legal sense. We as parents always asses the risks of putting our children on something that has no automatic stop switch but if a child is injured and distressed, that should ring alarm bells.
 
I've no doubt it's intended to be tongue in cheek, but since it's neither funny nor well written, I don't really care. It makes me sad that people talk and think about their horses like that, tongue in cheek or otherwise, because horses are bloody generous and tolerant beings., and we should be grateful to have them in their lives. To me there's a huge gulf between "I hate my ponies" and "I could really use a break, winter is hard work!".

And if your horse has behavioural issues (can't move around a gate in a mannerly fashion), in my book, that's your failing for not bloody training it.
 
Am comparing the modern HH with the old copies I have going back to before war.All articles well written.No instructional bits either.A lot of the articles could be covered in riding magazines.I guess they are writing for a different era.
 
Rowreach said:
Well ..... for many many years I was unofficial "sweeper" for our hunt, because I was looking after my own clients and ended up rescuing a lot of other people as well. On one memorable occasion, I was on a 17.2 five year old, pootling along at the back on a day when I didn't have any clients out. I jumped out of a wood into a big field, to see everyone standing around chatting during a check, and a small muddy boy on his feet, valiantly trying to get back onto his pony, who was spinning round and flatly refusing to let him.

I looked around, expecting to see someone helping him, but no, all too busy chatting (whilst watching him!!), so I got off the horse-mountain, legged him back up on the pony, at which point they all took off out of a gate at the far end, leaving me (I'm not very tall) hanging on to an enormous bouncy horse, with no hope of getting on from the ground, and no hope of getting him to stand next to the jump for me to climb on.

Then one of the whips came along, and being young and athletic, he hopped off, gave me a leg up, hopped back on his horse, and off we went, grumbling about selfish *rses who would leave a child to struggle like that ...
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Well that’s not my experience.
 
cindars said:
Am comparing the modern HH with the old copies I have going back to before war.All articles well written.No instructional bits either.A lot of the articles could be covered in riding magazines.I guess they are writing for a different era.
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Horse and Hound used to be very much for the professional and competition rider (and about hunting), and other mags like Your Horse appeared to cater for the leisure rider. H&H has changed to try to appeal to all comers. I stopped subscribing several years ago. It's neither educational and informative, or entertaining in its present form imv.. The internet is far more useful.
 
The thing is, to get away with this sort of tongue-in-cheek, dry, self-depreciating humour, you need to be a clever, witty and engaging writer, who can sweep up your audience and have them empathise and laugh along with you. Unfortunately Tessa Waugh is none of these things. So, what coming from a more able writer would have been "Ho ho ho, don't we all despair of ponies sometimes!" just becomes a bitter and entitled whinge that gets people's backs up. She's projecting all the horrible stereotypes people have about horsewomen :(
 
Floxie has it she simply does not have a deft enough touch to get people to empathise with her .
For instance the hours of labour verses moments of perfect riding fun with horses is a never ending source of jokes in our house .
There’s a rich vein of humour in there .
 
Goldenstar said:
Floxie has it she simply does not have a deft enough touch to get people to empathise with her .
For instance the hours of labour verses moments of perfect riding fun with horses is a never ending source of jokes in our house .
There’s a rich vein of humour in there .
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There's funnier posts on here every day than there are articles in H&H :)
 
will she be getting the shove once the season is over at least?

They can pretty much take their pick of good funny writers about equestrian pursuits, how did they end up with that? and/or not to some heavy editing?
 
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