Jeremy Clarkson's view on horse ownership............
Money's no object and men don't count when a woman has a horse (May 17) Jer...emy Clarkson
Socialists will tell you the country has gone mad because it has just voted for more cuts, more austerity and a smaller, more efficient NHS. Ukip supporters, meanwhile, will tell you the country is insane because their party received almost 4m votes but won just one seat. And Liberal Democrats will tell you the nation is bonkers because that nice Mr Cable did a Kevin Phillips Bong*.
I agree with all of them, but for different reasons. I know the country is completely off its rocker because collectively we own nearly half a million pet horses.
There are so many that now, every weekend, every field in the land is hosting some kind of show to which thousands and thousands of people will turn up with their nags and stand about trying to decide which is the best. This in itself is a sign of madness because horses are like milk bottles: they are all exactly the same.
But the problem runs deeper than that, because the people who own horses lose all sense of reason. And let's be clear on this: when I say "people", I mean "women".
Men see horses as a tool for gambling, or possibly food, whereas women see them as deities with an ability to cure all known illnesses.
Got a cold? You'll be told to go for a ride. Got a drink problem? There are places in Arizona that use horses to cure you. Are you a burglar? Well, statistics in Horse & Hound have shown that 107% of people who sit on a horse never reoffend, and never get cancer either.
A riding enthusiast will tell you that a horse invented the steam engine long before James Watt got involved and that it was simply unable to convey this important discovery to others.
And as a result she will treat horses with a respect that's borderline idiotic.
If, as a man, you decided in the night not to bother getting up to go to the loo and simply emptied your bowels into the sheets, you can be fairly sure that your wife would be extremely cross. This is because you're not a horse. A horse can do a big steaming turd in its bed and she will cheerfully put on a pair of rubber gloves and change its sheets with a big-hearted smile.
It's the same story at breakfast time. When the horse is led into its paddock, it will do a No 2 right in the middle of its breakfast, which will also need to be cleared up. You try doing that on the bacon and eggs she's made and see what happens.
Then there's the question of violence. If your dog were to attack a child you would be horrified, and would at least consider having it put down. It's the same story with your children. If they get into a fight, you put them in their room with no supper.
But when a horse kicks an eight-year-old with such force that its head comes off, you take the poor thing's weeping parents to one side and scold them for letting their child get within range. "Now look. You've upset the horse."
One day your horse will be spooked by a paper bag, or a van, or a puddle, or a bit of rain, or a gust of wind, or the scent of a fox, and it will throw you to the ground. You will sustain fractured ribs and a broken collarbone, and somehow this will be your fault.
Another interesting thing about horse ownership is that you must never have just one. You will need two or 11 or several hundred, some of which you will lend out to friends and family.
No one does this with cars or cooking appliances or children. No one says, "Here, have one of my dogs. I've got loads."
But horse people do because they are mad.
There's more.
When your children's shoes have seen better days, you tell them that money's tight and that they'll last another term. You may even tell them off for wearing them out so quickly. But your horse? Crikey, no. The damn thing gets a new set of shoes every six weeks. This is not cheap. Nothing's cheap with a horse. A saddle will be Pounds 1,500. It'll need blankets, and they're Pounds 150 a go. Then there's a bridle at Pounds 150, and that's before you start buying food. Hay costs more these days than rocket, and over a year it'd be cheaper to buy the damn thing a nicely togged eiderdown duvet than keep it in straw.
You may even need to buy it a paddock from the local farmer. And the going rate for an acre these days is whatever the farmer wants. And because the farmer knows the horse woman has lost all connection with reality, he'll want about 300,000 Pounds.
Then you'll need to build your horse a house, which will cost more than yours did.
Oh, I nearly forgot. The horse will then need its own enormous car, full of bedding and plumbing, which will be driven on bank holiday Mondays by a teenage girl at 4mph. These cost more than most Bentleys.
Eventually the breadwinner in the family -- horse people never have jobs because they have the horses to look after -- will consider sneaking out at night and lacing the horse's food with some kind of lethal drug. But this is unwise, because when a horse is dead the costs really start to run out of control.
You can't sell it to Tesco any more and nor can you rent a bulldozer to dig a big hole and bury it. That's because your wife will be sitting there, in her wheelchair, wailing through her voice synthesiser that such barbarity would make her cry and that crying will hurt all her broken bones.
So you'll need to organise a proper burial, with a vicar and so on. And don't think you can sneakily call the local hunt when the nurse is putting your wife to bed, because a) she'll hear their chainsaws as they chop it up, and b) even that will cost Pounds 300.
It's strange. We've arrived at a point where, if horses were treated like husbands, the RSPCA would make accusations of cruelty and come round with arrest warrants.
And if that isn't indicative of a nation's madness, then I'll eat my pigs.
