Eklil Blog – February 2025

I appear to have retired from racing, although I have no recollection of making that decision.

{You did drop some hints – Ed.}

Monty’s Award also had the same experience when passing the blog over to me. There is clearly some type of sinister conspiracy at work, and I look forward to hearing Mel Gibson’s thoughts on who is behind it. Although perhaps “retirement” is one of those words of which horses have no knowledge. Others in that category would be catacomb, instigation, regret and spud.

{May I, on the event of your retirement, offer my contrafibularities – Ed.}

Of course you can, but I have idea what to do with them. Anyway, what actually happened was that I was due to run at Fakenham. The course had had a few meetings in quick succession, and the feedback from other visitors amongst my Shovelstrode colleagues was that the running surface was suffering a bit from the schedule, so I immediately decided that I was not really up for the trip. What has worked in the past when I did not want to run was to have a bit of swelling on a leg. As soon as that happens, racing plans are all cancelled. Try as I might, I could not make any part of the leg look vaguely swollen. So to force the issue, I wrapped a thick brown bath towel around my lower leg and did it up with masking tape. To me, it looked perfectly like a swollen leg, but not one of the humans was fooled for a second. These animals are not as daft as they look.

{Thanks for that – Ed.}

Tragically (and I do not use that word lightly), I therefore had to go all the way to northern Norfolk, and I naturally had the right hump about it, so being a bit stressed meant that I had a nosebleed in the race again. Now I know what you’re thinking – I must be very chilled out now that I will not have to race again. The trouble is, I have just bought two dozen brown bath towels off of Rafe. Lord knows what I am going to do with them.

{Put them on the horse auction website, Eneigh – Ed.}

It is time for this month’s question. It was sent in by a Mr R. F. Kennedy of Connecticut. He asks whether the unexpected appearance of the corpse of a bear in a city centre park means that the bear was a cryptid, or some other form of mythical animal. I am going to argue that the cadaver means that it was until fairly recently an actual creature, a view supported by the significant evidence that we have pointing to the ongoing existence of bears. Imagine, however, that it turned out to be a new sub-species of bear? I doubt anyone bothered to check, but that would be a cryptozoological wonder. Can I at this stage express my disappointment in the declining quality of questions submitted? Or are am I just holding excessive high expectations?