When asked by a school village leader why he was misbehaving in my class, he screwed up his face in pure disgust and spat, ‘It’s English!’

Losing hit its peak the day I broke my back.

They are saying now that the future is female. But what is female? What is the future? Why is it on a t-shirt?

They gave me a corner of the male jockeys’ room, sectioned off with a curtain so I could change. I couldn’t hide behind the curtain the whole time, though; the men walked around semi-naked in front of me, while I sat in my silks, pretending to study the race book.

It was a prominent feature of those early lessons, being put on the lunge without reins, and often, without stirrups, while circling one arm overhead at walk, trot, and canter.

Anika Schleu’s coach Kim Raisner punched her allocated horse Saint Boy, and the internet exploded with outrage. Horse punching is a big no-no these days, whatever the context. The debate that followed says something interesting about how our views of horse welfare are shifting, and the UIPM’s decision is a reflection of the times, an indication that ‘tradition’ no longer holds up as an excuse not to change. 

You have always said to your children, ‘Wait for the green woman Billy,’ or ‘Stop Sarah, it’s the red woman,’ without even thinking about the pronoun you were using or how it was imprinting in their developing minds.

We were neighbors for two years and partners for just over one. He ended it on New Year’s Day. I cried every day until February, unable to stop myself from noticing things that would set me off: his car in the driveway, his car not in the driveway, his sheets on the line, him walking his whippet, Lola, on the road beneath my bedroom window or stooping to pick up her shit.

Not only was I being forced to sit and watch someone read my writing, but it was my writing naked, without the clothing of creativity. It was like I was naked, sitting there watching his reaction to every single piece of flesh, every un-styled bump and groove.

The point of any game is to simulate life in some way. The graphics in Roblox are not realistic. The avatars are blockish characters who look hilarious when they die. This means it feels safe to experiment with risk. To play around with your own mortality. I scream-laugh ever time my head flies off.

As an ex-horse breaker, I know there are a lot of gadgets designed to force horses into unnatural positions, to crank their mouths shut or pull their heads in. I think about how to reframe that as if talking to a misbehaving student. Shut you mouth. Pull your head in. Submit.

I was flat-chested and mousy, she was well-muscled and precocious. Flirting for her was beating the boys at arm wrestling; I couldn’t compete with that. Horses were our shared romantic interest, and like any other shared romantic interest, we fought viciously over it.