I think her attitude was 'sod this. I want to be somewhere else.' All riding school horses must get like that eventually - though her owners really do seem unusually devoted to their horses' welfare. Their animals get turned out most nights and only get used for a couple of lessons a day, with a couple of days off a week.

When my poor horse was a riding school inmate, he had two weeks holiday a year and was ridden up to four hours a day seven days a week. No wonder he died young.

Perhaps Softy has a secret talent for writing sonnets or quantum physics. Sadly, we shall never know.