Thanks to Olivia doing this little exercise, we learned that Frankie apparently naps for like 22 hours a day. I’m equal parts jealous of his life yet pretty sure he also has a sleep disorder. But how does Henry spend HIS day? Let’s find out…

8am: OMG BREAKFAST!!! If it’s above 40 (which is basically 11 months of the year in Texas) he was turned out all night. He’s always the first horse brought in for breakfast because as soon as he sees the barn worker’s truck he starts screaming non-stop, and if you’ve never had the privilege of hearing a Henny scream, it’s unnecessarily loud and high pitched. “Trumpeting” would be a good description, if trumpets sounded like Mariah Carey. No one wants to listen to that.

8:15am: He makes lots of terrible faces at the mare next door while she eats her grain, because SOMEONE’S fat butt is already finished. Then he paws his hay everywhere because he’s angry about… literally everything. So many feelings.

8:20am: He starts licking his salt block and passes into ZenHenny mode. He finishes his hay, which is now scattered from one end of the stall to the other. Then he demands to be taken back outside (as long as it’s not over 80 degrees).

9am: If it’s under 80, he goes back out. If it’s over 80, he gets his fans (yes plural) turned on and left inside. Hims is delicate. Hims cannot go outside when it’s hot. Hims melt.

10am: If he’s outside, he’s instigating a game of Bitey Face with the quarter horses across the fence. If he’s inside he’s peeing and then taking a nap in it, or begging every single person that passes by his stall for a cookie. It usually works.

12pm: If he’s inside, he gets more hay. If he’s outside but the day is getting too hot, he’s brought in and given hay. If the weather is nice, he stays out until dinner, mostly either grazing or pestering the other horses over the fence. Sometimes he likes to lay flat out and play dead during random odd times of the day just to make sure the barn workers are paying attention.

4pm: I always arrive right at dinner time (except for the serious heat of the summer, in which case I ride him at 6am), which basically ruins his whole day. I give him a handful or two of his dinner and chat with the barn workers while I groom and tack up. Usually there’s a “what did Henry eat today” story. Like… sunflower seeds, Doritos, Bugles, Goldfish crackers, cinnamon sugar cookies, french fries, bananas… it’s always something. Whatever snacks the workers have, he usually tries, because he’s the barn favorite and is S-P-O-I-L-E-D. Oddly enough he’ll eat all that crap yet he absolutely will not eat an apple under any circumstance. Henny logic.

4:30-5:30pm: Ride. Alternate between pretending to not know what “go” means and pretending to not know what “whoa” means. Spook at the same round bale every day, both while headed out AND while headed in. That round bale is obvs a portal to hell. Or food. But portal to hell is more likely, let’s be real.

5:30pm: Post-ride rinse and graze, if it’s warm (usually), or curry if it’s cold. Get a few minutes of psoas stretches and back/butt massage while he pretends to be pissed (he secretly likes it but cannot ruin his street cred by admitting it), then liberal applications of fly spray and anti-fungal spray because HIMS DELICATE.

5:50pm: OMG DINNER!!! The mare next door has already been turned back out, so he makes ugly faces at the stall wall instead.

6:00pm: if it’s nice weather, he goes back outside with his hay. If it’s still hot he stays inside and eats his hay, and the barn worker comes back and turns him out once the sun goes down. If it’s super cold he stays inside with lots and lots of hay that he first spreads everywhere and then eats every tiny morsel of. It’s like a DIY scavenger hunt.

All night, when he’s in: Pee, then sleep in it. While not sleeping in pee, he grinds all the poop up so that it’s thoroughly mixed into the bedding. Everyone loves this.

All night, when he’s out: find some kind of prickly weed or ant mound, then sleep on it, inevitably causing something terrible to happen to his skin. Because he has the smarts, y’all.