The wit and wisdom of the horse dentist

The horse dentist put down his medieval-looking implements and pinned me to the spot with a look.

‘Those guys,’ he said, reaching into the yawning jaws of the builder boyfriend’s black and white cob to check the back teeth he had just filed, ‘load horses and take them from England to Ireland and from Ireland to England all day, every day, so don’t make a fuss. I know you. You’ll worry about everything and drive them mad. Just let them do their job. They’re professionals. Right, that one’s done.’ And he handed me back Jimmy, who was licking his newly done gnashers.

We stood by the field gate in the blistering sunshine, and the horse dentist began cleaning his implements in a bucket while giving me a stern talking to.

In his blue overalls, with his tanned arms and blond quiff, he cuts a commanding figure. You have to listen to the horse dentist, because he is a wickedly sarcastic man brandishing a power tool and wearing a belt full of other instruments so baffling there is no way for you to understand what they are and what he might do with them.

Also, he talks complete sense and is one of my favourite people. He has seen it all on his rounds, added to which he buys and trains eventers, which means he is used to going to and from Ireland with horses.

Having rubber-stamped my decision – in fact, he was delighted for me – he now saw that his next task was to allay my stupid female horse-owner fears about the move.

‘Oh, but what if it’s a rough sea… oh, but what if Darcy won’t load… oh, but she’s very sensitive and she might not like the motion of the ferry…’ On and on it went.