Merrick Stud

14/11/2025

Every
Word
Is
True…..

THE “EQUINE” TAX: APOCALYPSE EDITION
(A forensic investigation into why your horse eats better, lives better, and bathes with more expensive shampoo than you do.)

Let’s face it: the word EQUINE is not a description — it’s a financial weapon.
It’s marketing plutonium. It turns ordinary objects into instruments of economic despair.

A bucket in B&Q? £3.99.
Same bucket with a galloping silhouette and the word EQUINE? £48.
Now it’s a Hydration Delivery System™.
You will still fill it with the same hose that leaks brown sludge and occasionally waters the dog.

Fly spray.
Human: £4.
Horse: £58 — clinically proven to repel nothing but your savings account.
The label promises “long-lasting protection.”
Reality: lasts three minutes, or until your horse exhales.

Shampoo.
Human: £2.
Equine: £28.
Exact same ingredients, different label font.
You know this. You’ve read the bottle. You’ll still buy it — because “apple scent” smells like devotion and denial.

Hoof balm.
Vaseline: £1.20.
Equine Keratin Horn Nourishment Complex™: £54.
Smells like beeswax and bankruptcy.
Applied reverently with a brush that costs more than your first phone.

Vinegar.
Tesco: 39p.
Equine vinegar: £17.99.
What’s the difference?
The horse version “promotes natural hoof balance.”
The human version promotes pickling. Same thing. Different target species.

Supplements.
You could buy human magnesium, vitamin E and linseed for £12.
Or you could pay £89 for Equine Zen Harmony Pellets™ —
now with “quantum calm technology” and a picture of a horse that looks like it owns a Tesla.

Therapeutic rugs.
For humans: a blanket. £20.
For horses: £249, lined with “ceramic nano-particles that reflect far-infrared dreams.”
You’ve been sleeping under a 2007 duvet,
but your horse is basically in a five-star spa in Dubai.

Feed balancer.
Translation: vitamins in a bucket.
Price: your dignity.
Every ingredient sounds like a Harry Potter spell — ascophyllum nodosum, methionine, unicorn tears —
and it still smells like dead seaweed and guilt.

Boots.
For people: £45.
For horses: £175 each, and sold as Impact Reduction Systems™.
They’re Velcro tubes, not NASA tech.

Even salt isn’t safe.
Human: 99p.
Horse: £29, “harvested by moonlight from an ancient Himalayan cave.”
The horse licks it once, glares at you, and goes back to chewing the fence.

But the final boss?
Equine-specific cleaning products.
Dettol: £2.
Equine Disinfectant Concentrate with Bio-Active Hoof Harmony Technology™: £35.
It’s Dettol. With a horse sticker.

We are not customers. We are believers.
We’ll pay £90 for mud (mineral clay poultice) and call it “therapy.”
We’ll eat toast for dinner while our horses get organic linseed pressed under a waning moon.

We don’t own horses anymore.
They own us — and their marketing teams know it.

(This is satire. But if you just googled “bio-active hoof balm,” it’s also an intervention.)

14/11/2025

A preci of my day
5am: admit defeat and get up for a wee (cursing my bladder!)

Go back to bed, and getting into bed spot the Aurora out of the window.
Forgot I’d plugged the extension reel in to watch TV upstairs last night as OH was allegedly glued to the football downstairs, so I’d watched TV lying in bed, and of course I’d forgotten to move it….walked straight into the bloody thing. Said “oh dear me that was a little bit sore” (well, words to that effect.)

Lie in bed wondering if it’s just a bruise or if if I’m quietly bleeding to death, so get up.

Satisfied that my leg is just a better colour than the Aurora that caused the issue, get organised to put a large round bale out for Maisie, Lowri and the babies before going to work.

Bloody tractor won’t start despite a brand new battery last week, so we push a big round bale down, and roll it into the field, just as it starts to hail and snow. Sideways.

Panic that Maisie won’t allow any other horse than the prodigal daughter Lily to eat the hay.

Decant as much as I can into a separate pile so Lowri and the twins get some, stumbling through mud and sliding around like a skater on crack. More colourful language.

Bloke from the solar panel company turns up to do a video survey prior to installation.

Get to work 2 hours late (luckily it’s flexi time so got away with that one!🤷🏻‍♀️)

Go shopping (food-boring!)

Get home. Smile at seeing the mares and babies happily munching away together. Wince at the fact that half the round bale has already been devoured.

Tell Reuben and Stitch that a large round bale should really last them longer than 5 days, and it’s tough if they’ve run out/slept on/peed on/pooed on the rest, the tractor will be fixed tomorrow or we will use the gator and bale trailer to get one at least through the gateway tomorrow!

Note with relief that Scarlet and Magnum still have hay left.

Cook dinner.

Realise had no lunch.

Devour dinner.

Now sitting with a VERY large glass of red wine.

How the f*ck have I managed to get 7 bruises from walking into an extension reel? It’s a pretty colour though. Almost as colourful as my language when I tripped over the bloody thing.

What time is bed???!

😂😂🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🙄🙄🙄🤬🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

13/11/2025

Strange looking at them last year as we get closer to 2026…..

13/11/2025

Looking back to last year as we edge ever closer to next year. They look small here compared to now, but they were huge compared to their newborn size!

13/11/2025

Why would you ever want to live anywhere else? The main man Hogan ♥️

13/11/2025

Poppy always likes to make her presence felt! Poor Lowri!

13/11/2025

One that some may have missed….Stroppy Poppy and her tormenting games!😂😂😂

13/11/2025

Another first pony-Emma’s first pony this time.
Waterton Ruby was a daughter of dual HOYS and RWAS show winner Winneydene Satellite.
After we lost Sovereign, I needed a companion for another horse I owned at the time, and so Ruby was bought for Emma’s Christmas present in 2000.
I literally led her home from the field I’d had her hidden in, and wrapped her in tinsel, before calling Emma outside to see her main present!
For the first couple of years we just did small local shows using a borrowed trailer, eventually a few judges commented that she should be doing affiliated showing, and so we dipped our toe (rather unsuccessfully to start with!) in the affiliated showing scene. Our Summer “holiday” soon consisted of a week spent first of all in Peterborough, and then Newark at Ponies (UK) Championships show. There we’d pitch a 2 man tent, and live out of a suitcase in the car, while Ruby had the relative luxury of on-site stabling.
As we gained confidence and experience we did a lot better, the ultimate day taking wins in the lead rein and first ridden classes, gaining a reserve champion to boot. She also gained a 5th place in the coveted Lobster Pot M&M lead rein final, as well as qualifying for open M&M ridden championship classes too.
Ruby’s competitive successes aren’t what stood her apart though. Her temperament was the ultimate child’s pony. She would stand with her mouth open, head lowered for Emma to wrestle her bridle on, and would position herself next to the fence for Emma to clamber on board. After her classes had finished at shows Ruby would be tied to the trailer and allowed some grass, Emma would drag the haynet alongside her, climbing onto her ba****ck, before turning around and sliding off over her tail! This would be repeated until we loaded up for home.
To keep her fit in the winter I’d exercise her from my bike, the locals became quite accustomed to me, riding my bike and leading Ruby from the wrong side, smartly trotting around the village we lived in.
She also loved jumping, so I’d loose jump her-the photo of her jumping she’s popping over a 4ft6ins jump-not bad for a pony standing 11hh on her tiptoes.
In 2007, with Emma 11 and out of first ridden classes, and getting too tall for Ruby, we decided to cover her. (There was never an option of selling her!)
She was duly covered, and on Thursday 12th July she was booked in to be scanned. I arrived to find her weak, sick and I telephoned the vet with the most awful sense of dread. Later that day she was transferred to Rainbow Equine Hospital in Malton, and as I kissed her goodbye that evening I honestly knew I’d never see her again. I paused to look back at her when she called to me, and cried all the way home.
I was right-she was put on an IV drip overnight, was scanned the next day and prepared for surgery.
While I was distraught, my ex husband calmly announced we couldn’t afford an operation, phoned the clinic and told them to put her to sleep.
At that precise moment I knew that not only was I again losing a friend, but the final nail in the coffin of my marriage was very firmly nailed shut.
Her ashes are still here 18 years later, in a casket with a horseshoe entwined with flowers painted on the front, and her name in a brass plaque on the top.
She was irreplaceable, so, so special, and I loved her beyond compare.
She was 13 when she grew her wings (far too young), and she died on Friday the 13th. I wasn’t superstitious before we lost her-I am now!
♥️♥️♥️Ruby♥️♥️♥️

13/11/2025

Reaching out to my new followers….please share the page on your fb profile!

11/11/2025

Shout out to my newest followers! Excited to have you onboard!

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11/11/2025

Another pony who was a huge influence….
My first pony, Sovereign entered my life on a cold March morning in 1981. She was a dream come true, I can even remember the trip to the tack shop an hour before she arrived, spending the last of my savings on a red nylon headcollar and rope, a dandy brush and a hoof pick!
She was skin and bone, covered in lice, had a heavy redworm infestation, and clearly needed a lot of tlc, but our vet had checked her over and assured us that she’d be fine after a few months.
What no one knew was that Sovereign was carrying a little secret stowaway….that became evident as she gained condition later in the Spring!
After having her foal (with us all present-her waters having broken while I was holding her eating her tea!) on August 9th my stud prefix was born. Merrick Annie was named in honour of a friends daughter (Merrick) whose birthday party we had been at just before her birth, and Annie as she was born on my parents wedding anniversary.
Sovereign was never going to win a showing class, and despite jumping crazy items out hacking (including car park fences and picnic benches😂🙈) would invariably frustrate my dreams of being a show jumper by resolutely refusing to jump much at shows!
But….she was my best friend, my confidante, my world, and the fastest pony (or horse) I’ve ever ridden. I used to hack along the beach with 2 racehorses in training and their riders were amazed at how she kept up with them!
We nearly lost her to Atypical Myopathy due to sycamore poisoning, in her usual fashion she refused to die, and was nursed back to health in our garage on the cul-de-sac where we lived as we had no stables.
In time, my own 2 children learnt to ride on her, and again a pony who could be sharp, unpredictable and flighty knew how important her little riders were, and looked after them. Emma used to bath her with me, standing directly underneath her, arms up shampooing Sovereigns tummy and she never, ever moved a muscle.
Her last rosette ever was at our local agricultural show when she was 24. She, Emma and Michael won the fancy dress, fluffy from the Cushings she’d developed, but happy.
Her health deteriorated over the next months, her arthritis worsened as did the Cushings, and, for the first time in my life, I had the agonising decision to make, to let her go on a good day.
For 20 years she was a huge part of my life, and took to her grave a massive chunk of my heart, that, even now, 25 years on, still hurts.
She was the third pony I lost, having lost her daughter Annie to colic aged 5, and her replacement Oliver to a tragic field accident within 6 months of losing Annie. The difference was I had the dubious “luxury” of choosing the “good day”.
I’m always grateful that it was bright and sunny, and although it was November, she was laid to rest and was buried in a field of lush green grass, that she was given time to stuff her face with whilst waiting for the vet to arrive.