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Thursday 15th May 2003
I’ve started getting feedback about my column. It seems as if many of you have got it into your head that I am arrogant. Moi, far from i!. It’s just, if you were a French bred aristocrat, trained by both Martin Pipe and Barry Hills and were used to mixing with the highest class of equine, you might feel a little irritated by that little Shetland squirt and his ‘nice but dim’ companion. Of course, all horses (and even some ponies) are far superior to any human. That goes without saying. At least my human staff know their place and I’m sure they feel more secure for it.
Whilst on the subject of origins, you might be interested in my name- Alezane. My racing name was “Always Special”, which proves humans can’t always be wrong. Before I moved here and was working (you know my real work – grass cropping - this was more like slavery) in a riding school under the name of ‘Stick’. My new humans had always put it down to an unkind comment on my lack of ‘condition’ (remind me to tell you about that word, one day) but later they found out I had been named after a character in a sort of modern fairy tale. Anyway, they didn’t like the name and were worried that my original name would make me put on airs (as if!). So. they renamed me Alezane. It’s all due to my French roots and my chestnut colouring. I was nearly named Maron (or, being female, Maronne) as being French for chestnut until they found that the French have a word, alezane, that just means a chestnut coloured horse rather than an edible nut. So there you have it. My humans are kind but would be hard put to outstrip Treggy in the inventiveness stakes!

Friday 16th May 2003
I enrolled the first member of my fan club today. When HE had been trying to register my website name, HE had tried ‘alezane.com’ only to find that it had already been taken. Out of curiosity, HE looked at that website and found it was owned by a company named Alezane, operating out of a place called Laval. HE looked in the atlas to see where Laval was and found two listed. One was in France and one in Canada. So HE sent off an e-mail to the company saying ‘who are you?’ with a photo of me. This is the reply HE received –

“Hi, Your horse is beautiful!

We are a graphic design studio. We love horses, and we felt in love with the name "ALEZANE".
We leave at Laval, (Québec, Canada)

Suzanne Parent”

Now, if someone said you are beautiful, wouldn’t you think they deserved a reward? So, Suzanne gets the honour of being ‘le premiere’ member of my newly formed fan club. If you would like to join, click on the e-mail address at the top of this diary page.
The other thing I had to tell you was about Phil and Phreddie. They had a real battle this morning. It started out just the usual name calling and posturing. Then, as they got closer to Phlorrie, it turned into wing phlapping and pecking. Phinally (oh no, they’ve got me at it now) it turned into a real phight! And all the while, Phlorrie just carried on eating her breakphast as if nothing was happening!

Saturday 17th May 2003
I have been criticised for being nasty to Tregony. People have said that I put him down and talk as if he were very inferior. Well, lately SHE has been giving him a new kind of medication, putting it in his feed (he is a sensitive type, if he sees you with medicine he tends to run to the farthest corner of the field. It’s true, I’m not being nasty, really!) We all have noticed a change in him. At first, it was just that he tended to stride out better, as we went to work in the mornings. Then, he started to get down the hill as fast as the rest of us, Worse, he started to go where he wanted to go when we went up the field. And now, this morning, he attacked Phreddie (or Phil. To be honest, I have trouble telling one pheasant from another.) Yes, Treggy put down his ears and charged him. We later saw that he also started eating the rolled oats that HE puts out for them in the mornings. So, Tregony is no longer last in the pecking order. Where will it all end?
I am told that there is now a button on my website to press, if you want to join my fan club. The current one revolves but it could very well change in the future, as it slows down the loading of the whole page. I have got him looking out for a button in the shape of a horse shoe, as it should be in keeping, don’t you think? Anyway, you had better join now, while you can, as he is investigating more software which may make you answer a 35 page questionnaire to check your fitness for membership. We don’t want just anyone joining, now do we?
Sunday 18th May 2003
Are you aware that every hedge in the land has its own conservator? You may sometimes have noticed them as you walked or drove past, standing or sitting and watching the hedge very attentively. You probably didn’t

think much about it at the time, just another facet of the countryside, but, in fact, they play a really important role in the preservation of our eco structure and the balance of nature and all that. You think you are doing your tiny bit by putting out your used wine bottles or my empty feed bags for the rattle crash recycling men but, compared to these fine fellows (or queens) yours is but a polo mint in a granary. They really do ensure that the countryside retains that quality which makes rich city folk think that country dirt is clean dirt. I have known many of these fine citizens as I make my way along the lanes to Nine Fields and, what is very interesting is that quite a few of them have only three legs. All the same, they can move as swift as anything when they choose and also they have one other rare gift. They can jump into a seemingly solid hedge and disappear! I have to admire that but in terms of job satisfaction I’d rather have my work than a cat’s any day.
The flood of e-mails to my fan club has raised the issue of the urgent need for a ‘problems page’. So, in the near future, when the staff can organise it, you can look forward to a ‘Dear Alli’ feature appearing on this web site. In anticipation, if any of you have any really pressing problems, you can get me on :

dear-alli@alezane.co.uk