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.
