The horse dentist is handsome, with blond windswept hair and a weather-beaten face. There is something Heathcliffian about him, something wild and sexy.
On the other hand, he dresses in overalls, brandishes grim tools, and looks a lot like a medieval torturer.
He cheers me up with his gallows humour, but also he scares me. The overall effect is what you would call a frisson.
He regales me with rude jokes as he gets stuck in with gigantic pliers. Hard to know whether to laugh or scream.
On this occasion, I called him out primarily to look at Tara, the old mare. I had been through the usual expensive vet visit, which consisted of me telling the vet I knew exactly what was wrong with the animal I had owned for 20 years, and the twentysomething vet telling me my instinct was completely wrong.
I told this vet: ‘Look, she’s got a dodgy tummy but there’s nothing else wrong with her. She’s very old. And the last bale of hay was particularly sharp. So I reckon her teeth have taken a turn for the worse, she’s struggling to chew her food and she’s swallowed some sharp hay that’s irritated her gut. She needs a dental and something to bind her up.’
The vet put her hand in Tara’s mouth and declared her teeth fine. Then she took blood and poo samples and went away to test them for everything exotic and drastic from salmonella to liver failure.
The tests all came back negative, as I told her they would. But at least I had the cynicism to call the dentist out anyway.
It was approaching dusk when he drove down the track and, as he wound down his window to greet me, I voiced some concern that he wouldn’t have time to do all three horses.
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