Between the poxy Russians invading Ukraine and Lorenzo becoming a TikTok sensation it’s been quite a week. He’s so far up himself now, you can’t talk to him without an appointment. He thought the Ukraine was down at the Port in Cork, we had to explain to him it was next to Russia and then he wanted to know where Russia is, so at that point we gave up and Pamela Anderson enrolled him in Pony School, which was suspended during the Pandemic. He was supposed to get home schooling from Reginald Goatpony but there was a breakdown in communication and Reginald thought Pamela Anderson was schooling him so in the end he got no schooling at all and it shows. He’s a most ignorant little bollix.
The Lady found out where we gapped it over the ditch into Rocketts and she and Nicola spent all of Thursday morning putting a fence across the top but they left a small gap which Diablo spotted so it was no bother to us to go in there again. Reginald said it wouldn’t be long before she spotted us so we should make the best of it but in the end we got 3 days out of it because the weather was so shite the Lady hardly came out of the house. ThMacen she stuck 3 pallets in the gap and so far we haven’t found another way out but we will.
We’ve raised nearly €3000 to buy the property. It’s been only 3 weeks since we started and the Lady is very pleased. Lorenzo held a raffle on Sunday and got €70.
We’re very upset thinking about the Ukraine and what’s happening to the animals people have to leave behind, what are they going to do with nowhere to sleep and noone to feed them. What about the poor horses at Chernobyl? It’s a worry.
The Lady is run off her feet now, making videos and posting them on TikTok and Facebook and Instagram. She says it has to be done because that’s the only way lots of people are going to know about our predicament and send us money. They mostly about Lorenzo but she says she’ll be making ones of all of us, I hope it be my turn soon, I’d like to be a TikTok star.
I’m a bit late with this week’s blog because we had not 1, not 2, not 3, but FOUR storms last week and I got blown out of it into next door’s, me and Diablo and Reginald and Al Caponey. A big gust of wind came and whoosh, up we went into the air and landed on the other side of the ditch. The Lady’s car was in the garage getting a new exhaust all week, well it didn’t actually take all week just our mechanic Ollie lost the Lady’s phone number so he couldn’t let her know it was ready last Saturday. It was a nuisance because it meant the Lady was at home all week watching us and we had to cancel our plans to go into the other next door’s for a feed of grass, there’s feck all grass here by this stage and we’re sick of hay.
The Lady made a separate track for Ernie and Sinbad and Pamela Anderson with no grass on it and they were so cross they went in the stable and wouldn’t come out for 2 whole days. The Lady gave them all a back massage, I wouldn’t have minded one meself but she said only if I let her lift up my feet and I wasn’t having that so I didn’t get a massage. It’s not fair.
MacDonald started his walk to raise money to buy our own place because our landlord wants to sell this one and feck us out of it, the miserable cur. Where does he think we’re going to go? Frances says she’ll put the Curse of the Burning Arsehole on him so he’ll have more important things to think about than selling the house. It’ll probably be on the 6 o’clock news.
Anyway MacDonald is going to walk all over Ireland to raise money, he’s got his own Facebook page now, it’s called Macdonald’s Magical Miles and he’s already walked 6.8km and this week he’s going to walk 10km. Lorenzo said he wanted to go with him but the Lady said no way because the last time she took him for a walk he bit her and stood up on his hind legs when they got to the cross and caused a traffic jam and the Lady was mortified.
He’s a TikTok star now. 27,000 people have watched him making an arse of himself getting stuck in a wheelbarrow, there’s no accounting for what people will watch on the internet.
Today Nicola came to help the Lady fence the ditch to stop us going into Rocketts. They’ve done a good job, we went to try it out once they were finished and we couldn’t find a way through but Diablo says there’s another place further up so we’ll give it a few days and then we’ll try there.
And the fucking Russians have invaded Ukraine, people are dying, as if there isn’t enough hardship in the world, what are they like?
The tiny black and white foal stood alone in the stable, listening to his mum being loaded into a horsebox. At 10 days old, he couldn’t see over the door of the stable but he could hear her calling him and he called back.
“Where are you going, mummy? Take me with you. Please, mummy, take me with you.”
But nobody paid him any attention. His mother had been sold as a foster mare to rear a “more valuable” foal and he was never going to see her again.
And so he was advertised on Done Deal for €60 where, luckily, a supporter of Putting in the Magic saw him and bought him. Katie and her late husband, Cristy, brought him to their home and got him drinking from a bucket before bringing him to us. We named him MacDonald.
Cristy, you have since died in tragic circumstances but we will never forget what you did for a helpless little foal. It is not an exaggeration to say that without you, MacDonald would probably have died.
All alone in his stable, confused and frightened, he cried for his mother for days until he was strong enough to go out into a paddock with another rescue pony to comfort him. At night he went back into his stable. He was just too small and frail to be left outside for more than an hour at a time.For the next 3 months he was hand reared on 4 hourly milk feeds. He is now 6 years old, a healthy,happy cob who has recently been adopted into a lovely home.
Over the past eight years, we have created a place of safety for ponies like MacDonald. We have never said no to a pony in need.
We utilise our skills as Equine Massage Therapists, Craniosacral Therapists and Energy Healers to provide specialised care for ponies that nobody else wants. The ones who have given so much and once unable to give any more are cast aside to die a lonely death. Most will probably never be rehomed because they are too damaged, physically or psychologically. But they will experience a quality of life they have never had before and gain a sense of their own value.
Ponies like little Frances, a 42 year old shetland, found tied to a tree outside a primary school in Dublin, being stoned and punched and kicked by children until she fell to the ground, terrified out of her wits, while people passed by on their way to work and did nothing.
Ponies like Reginald Goatpony, found tied with blue rope to an electric gate on an industrial estate, so that every time the gate opened he had to walk with it. By the time somebody stopped to help him, his legs were tangled up in the rope and he had severe, infected abrasions on his back and belly, which required veterinary attention. He, too, found his way to us.
Ponies like Lorenzo, a tiny 3 month old shetland foal, whose back feet were shod with ill fitting shoes, who was put into harness and beaten down the road pulling a trap carrying 5 big lads. Lorenzo arrived in the middle of the night, depressed and bewildered, with a cough, an eye infection and damaged hind legs. He was so small, he was transported here in the back of a jeep.
Ponies like Ernie and Sinbad, both crippled with laminitis, and surrendered to us last year, who would have died a painful, lonely death without us. They are still not fully recovered 10 months later, despite the specialised care we have given them.
I have seen heartbroken owners weep inconsolably as they hand over their beloved ponies because of changed circumstances and I am always deeply affected by this. I hope I have managed to give them some measure of comfort.
Ponies like our most recent arrivals, 4 aged shetlands whose elderly owner became too ill to care for them any more, and whose only option was to put them to sleep until someone stepped in and asked us to take them.
We rescued our first pony, a Shetland foal abandoned by the roadside, in 2014. Since then 38 ponies have come through our doors, of which 21 have been rehomed and 4 have been euthanised because of illness or injury. There are currently 14 in our care. We think we’ve done a good job.
But now we need your help –and we need it urgently because our landlord has given us Notice to Quit at the end of June this year.
Some ponies are lucky enough to find a good home. MacDonald is one of these and this year he is going to set off on the journey of his life to save his friends and he needs your support.
He is going to walk around Ireland to raise the money so that we may buy a property of our own. If he fails to raise the money the sanctuary will close and these ponies will face a very uncertain future. Ponies like Frances and Ernie and Sinbad may have to be euthanised. Ponies that we might have saved in the coming years will not be saved.
Please help us to continue saving ponies by donating whatever you can afford to MacDonald’s Magical Miles. Your contribution will bring us closer to our goal. Be a part of our story. Be a part of our ponies’ lives.
Spread the story of MacDonald’s heroic journey far and wide so that we may provide a safe haven for the ponies that live here and continue to take in others that need our help.
Last Monday Lorenzo jumped on Frances and she fell over and when she got up and ran away he chased her all around the track until the Lady spotted him. She said, I’ve lost my patience with you now and when Lorenzo said he’d go look for it if she paid him a fiver I thought she was going to lose her temper, too.
Anyway, she took Frances away and put her with Ernie and Sinbad de Barra because they’re too crippled to jump on anyone. The Lady had their feet trimmed by a barefoot trimmer lady last Saturday so I hope their feet get better soon. I thought the trimmer lady’s feet would get very cold and I said it to Bon Bon but she said I was a fool so I kicked her.
They say the Laminitis has made their backs sore and Sinbad de Barra is very cross, he says he’s been trying to tell the Lady his back’s been at him for weeks and is her head up her arse or what? I tried to tell him she’s been very busy all of January getting ready for the big fundraiser which I can’t tell you about yet but he was having none of it. So I had a word and she’s massaging their backs 3 times a week now. They’ve had one go each and they say they feel better already. Laminitis is a terrible thing and you shouldn’t let your ponies get it.
At the end of the week Lorenzo got stuck in the pink wheelbarrow, and had to wait for the Lady to unstick him. After that he opened the front door and went down to the kitchen and got stuck in the passage and said if the Lady didn’t unstick him he’d lie down and roll so she had to take him into the kitchen to turn him around because he can’t reverse.
Fuckoffginger got out of her rug in the night and wrapped the straps around her front legs so she couldn’t move. Her proper name is Amanda and she’s 38 years old, she must be going senile. Luckily the Lady managed to untangle her without cutting the straps off which would have caused an almighty uproar because it was Frances’s Curse of the Burning Arsehole rug that she only had on loan while hers was in the wash. Even so, Frances had alot to say about it but I can’t say those rude words here because they on the forbidden list.
Our fishermen saw off the Russians so they’ve gone to cause trouble in the Black Sea now. What the fuck is wrong with them, why don’t they just go home and drink vodka and eat pirozhki and stop annoying the rest of the world, they’re like Al Caponey running around shitting on other ponies’ shit.
This week the Lady decided it was Spring and time to open up the track for us. I should explain that my herd consists of Lorenzo, Ayjay, Chrissie, Bon Bon and Al Caponey and we live in the top field beside Rocketts, which is an old pub that’s been derelict for years. It’s full of rats and Dog used to go in there to kill them and bring them home to the Lady before the Council boarded it up but that’s a story for another day.
Diablo lives in the bottom field with Reginald Goatpony and Sinbad and the ancient Minkeys.
And Pamela Anderson gets under fences and goes wherever she likes.
The Lady and Nicola spent all of Thursday morning putting up fencing and closing off our track and then the Lady let us onto it and all hell broke loose. First Al Caponey ran down to the fence where the two tracks meet and started swearing at Diablo and stamping his feet and thrreatening to rip his throat out and kill him. Diablo’s well sick of him by now so he started shouting back. “Fuck off you little toerag before I come in there and burst you.”
Then Pamela Anderson came into season and started flashing her twat all over the show which only infuriated them more. So the Lady decided to move her but oh no, didn’t she flash her twat at the Lady and gallop off down the track kicking and bucking and the Lady running behind her till Lorenzo ran up the hill and jumped off the other side and landed on her. The Lady, that is, not Pamela Anderson.
I decided to stay out of it and use the time to collect all the subscriptions to the pony retirement fund which were long overdue. They don’t understand why they have to pay when they’re not retired yet so its always a problem getting it out of them, I’m sick of it by now, I’m going to tell Pamela Anderson I’m not doing it any more. And there’s been some questions asked where does the money go especially since Pamela Anderson got a new mobile phone.
Lorenzo lost his wits which isn’t hard because he doesn’t have many wits to begin with, and jumped on Pamela Anderson and when she kicked him he jumped on Al Caponey and that didn’t end well either. So we all ran back up to the top and we haven’t been back down since. Diablo said if we come back down again he’ll kick us all to kingdom come wherever that is.
On Thursday Monkeyskin got adopted and his people came to fetch him, we were sad to see him go, he was a very nice pony. Lorenzo cried a bit.
The council found a dead man in a house in Dublin, he’d been dead for a year. They said the house was in a state of disrepair, what did they expect, him being dead and all, how was he spected to keep his house in good repair?
It’s been quite an exciting week. First a man in Carlow took his uncle to the Post Office to collect his pension but when they got there he was dead, not the man, the uncle, so the lady behind the counter said she wouldn’t give him his pension which I thought was a bit unfair because he’d surely need it to pay the knackerman to bring him away or the digger man to bury him in the field.
There was a mighty furore and the nephew dropped the dead uncle on the floor and ran away and the police were called but she still wouldn’t give him the pension. Lorenzo said whatever the nephew was on, he wanted some of it.
Anyway, everyone soon forgot about the uncle in the post office when the Russians arrived in their ships and said they were going to blow the bejesus out of West Cork.
I don’t know why they chose West Cork, they’d have been better off sailing up the Liffey and blowing the arseholes off Varadkar and Mehole. When I said that, Frances ran and put on her Curse of the Burning Arsehole rug and said she’d set Mary Lou’s arsehole on fire, I dunno what she’s got against Mary Lou, and after that she’d set Boris Johnson’s arsehole on fire. It’ll be Joe Biden next, Who knows where she’ll stop?
In the end she went at the Russian’s arseholes but she missed her aim and set some West Cork fishermen’s arseholes on fire instead and caused an international incident. I think she’s going senile but I’m saying nothing in case she sets MY arsehole on fire.
Speaking of holes, we’d no sooner finished with the Russians than all the ponies in the top field broke out onto the driveway and let out all the ponies in the bottom field. Everybody got all mixed up, Diablo and Al Caponey kicked the holes off each other, Lorenzo and Monkeyskin ran away into Rocketts and while all that was going on Chrissie ate the Lady’s car.
Yes, ATE it. Chewed the paint off the bonnet and pulled off a wing mirror.
Pamela Anderson lost the plot and called a Pony Council meeting and asked her why the FUCK she’d destroyed the Lady’s car and when she couldn’t give a good reason she sentenced her to 5 days in jail.
Personally I don’t know what could possibly qualify as a good reason for eating a car. Lorenzo said you might eat a car if there was frost on it and it was dark and you mistook it for a bale of haylage but he’s a twat and nobody pays him any heed..
Let me explain a bit about where we live. We have 4 acres of fields to play in and the Lady’s house is slap bang in the middle of it, at the end of a long driveway. There’s 14 of us at the moment so she has us divided into 2 herds because we don’t all get along and she can’t have 14 ponies running batshit crazy all over the place.
The Lady has us on a track that goes all the way around the fields with paddocks in the middle. The number of paddocks varies according to how many fences we break every week. We’re supposed to walk on the track around the outside to stop us getting fat and the Lady opens one paddock at a time for a few days. That’s the theory anyway.
It’s called rotation but we like to do our own rotation so sometimes we walk through the fencing. The very small ponies like Monkeyskin can go under the fencing and the bigger ponies like Reginald Goatpony just lean on it till it breaks and then we have one big paddock instead of 2 small ones which suits us better because we can get up a good burst of speed.
This winter she started a new system called Equicentral, I don’t think she’s done it right because we’re all up around the house now and whenever she leaves a door open Lorenzo and Pamela Anderson walk inside. Sometimes they go into the sitting room to watch a bit of telly and leave muddy hoof prints all over. I’m pretty sure that’s not part of the Equicentral system but there’s no talking to the Lady, she thinks she knows everything and she’ll just start roaring.
In the summer she’ll open the track again because it forces us to exercise if we want to get anything to eat. Be easier if she let us in the paddocks, I can’t be arsed walking for hours to find 2 blades of grass, but then we might get too fat and get laminitis. Laminitis is very serious and very painful and you can die from it.
We’ve got 2 ponies here with laminitis, Ernie and Sinbad. They’ve been here about a year. They didn’t get it here, they came like that when their own people gave up on them. The Lady put special boots on their feet and got them trimmed properly and gave them painkillers and they’re getting better but it’s taking a very long time. When Ernie first came here he lay down alot and he got abscesses in both his front feet for months but now not so much. I’m glad I’ve never had laminitis, it’s a dose.
My name is Matchbox and I am the Lady’s secretary. I used to be the clerk but I got promoted last year on account of my good work. And now the Lady has asked me to write a blog, which I think might be another promotion.
When I first came here 6 years ago I’d just been fired from my previous job and I was unemployed. My previous job was as a Therapy Pony but I misbehaved so I got the sack. Well, if I’m honest I did more than misbehave. I didn’t read the job description properly before I applied. I thought being a Therapy Pony meant I was the one getting the therapy because I’d been rescued from cruelty and they wanted to help me. So when they tried to put a headcollar on me I had a hissy fit and tried to kick the farrier with my front feet.
There were 2 other ponies there and when they saw what I did they called me a silly twat and I didn’t like that at all so I kicked one of them and after that I bit the lady that owned the place so that was the end of that job. I didn’t mean to be naughty, I was just very frightened of people because of the cruelty I’d suffered before I was rescued. Luckily the Lady here is cracked so she said she’d take me so I didn’t have to go back to the other place. Her name is Carole but we all call her the Lady, I’m not sure why. She’s been called the Lady since before I came here.
I came here in a horsebox with another pony called Snip, who’d also lost his job for bad behaviour. He’d bucked off a little girl although it wasn’t his fault, he had a sore back and ulcers in his tummy but nobody knew that until the Lady figured it out after he’d been here a while.
He was a very nice pony, alot bigger than me, and he told me not to be frightened, because he’d heard good reports about the place we were going to.
We got off the box and the Lady put us in a paddock on our own so the other ponies could see us and we hadn’t been there long before a wonderful thing happened.
Snip started calling and before I could ask him what he was at, a very old pony came cantering down to us and started kissing him. Pony kisses aren’t like people kisses, they’re more like nibbles.
Her name was Dotty and she was almost 40 years old and blind in one eye and deaf in one ear. Snip told me they’d been together all their lives until they were thrown out into a field one Christmas and a rescue came to help them. They sent Dotty to the Lady because she was too old to live outside in the snow but Snip stayed behind and he thought he’d never see her again.
Dotty said it was a miracle he’d been sent here and she should know. It was a miracle she was alive at all.
