Barney's Blog

Festive greetings - yule love this!

Evening all,

I love it when I get fan mail, so big thanks to the Alan Davison human for coming onto the gaffer’s Facebook page to enquire if I’ll be designing any personalised Christmas cards this year.

Well, Alan, it’s a bit bloody early to be thinking of Christmas, and I was tempted to tell you to bugger off. However, on reflection, I think it’s a jolly splendid idea. I’ve been playing around with a few designs and wondered what you thought about this one?

A neigh in a manger… Ha ha! How funny am I? I was also wondering about including the line from Jingle Bells: ‘In a one horse open neigh.’ Bloody hilarious! On the other hoof, maybe it should be Canter baby? Is there no end to my talent? I’m such a card.

Having said all that, everyone knows my favourite Carole…

Meanwhile, a special thanks to another of my biggest fans, a human called Shaun Sewell, who not only sent me a very nice letter (see below) but a packet of Polo mints.

I like that – “Something to suck on while writing your next blog.” I find it really helps us writers to concentrate if we’re sucking on a mint, so I really appreciate Shaun’s thoughtfulness.

Here’s a picture of me opening Shaun’s present and, for the record, I’m quite partial to Extra Strong Mints too.

Thanks also to another human, Joe McNally, who came onto Twitter last week to say he’d like to nominate me for the Nobel Prize For Literature.

Again, this is a great idea. I am, after all, the only ex-racehorse with their own blog and, even if I do say so myself, I’m a bloody good writer.

If I’m honest, I’m surprised I haven’t been nominated before. Bob Dylan won it and, if it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for me. Mind you, I quite like a bit of Dylan – especially A Hard Rein’s Gonna Fall.

It would be a real honour to win such a prestigious award, but I’d have to rename it the Neigh-bel Prize For Literature.

(I’ve just weed myself laughing!)

On a more serious note, it was nice to see the stable among the winners again last week. The more winners we have, the more carrots I get, so I was really chuffed to see me old mucker, Billy No Mates, win at Haydock yesterday. He’s been knocking on the door for a while, so he deserved to get his head in front. And I bet he had a lot more mates after going in at 16-1!

Earlier in the week, we’d had a nice double at Ripon, with Challet winning followed by Mustaqbal. With due respect to Challet, who’s a decent sort, I was especially pleased to see Mustaqbal win at the age of eight.

That was his sixth win in 51 races, so he’s been a good old servant, and now runs in the colours of the Denton Hall Racing syndicate.

Eight’s a decent age to be still winning but, then again, I was 12 when I won my last race at Thirsk.  Shows why I'm such a bloody legend.

By the way, the life expectancy for a racehorse is 25-30 but, just in case it crops up in a pub quiz, the world’s oldest ever horse was called Old Billy, who was foaled in Woolston, Lancashire, in 1760 and died at the age of 62. That’s even older than that Kenny Williams human!

The oldest living horse is called Shayne. He’s 51 and lives at a sanctuary in Brentwood, Essex. That’s down south.

I’m 17 now but I have every intention of hanging around and beating Old Billy’s record. After all, what would you lot have to look forward to without Barney’s Blog every week?

Take care everyone and keep the fan mail coming – you’re all mint!