All in a day’s work: Equine cartoonist David Stoten *H&H Plus*

David Stoten, H&H’s very own Thelwell, on Lester Piggott’s tiny Spitting Image puppet and the challenges of caricature

I’m absolutely not horsey, so the hardest part of this job for me is drawing horses. They’re surprisingly hard. Thelwell nailed it, especially the cute ponies, but for Horse & Hound I’m more likely to be drawing a thoroughbred, and I don’t want to offend anyone.

There’s a truism I have to get across, even more than for humans. You can have more fun with people, whereas I can’t just do a goofy cartoon of a top Olympic horse; I need to be more respectful. Readers will notice inaccuracies.

I don’t pretend to understand horses; it’s an enormous field. But Thelwell wasn’t horsey either. You just have to have feeling. We go racing a bit at Beverley and I’m always looking at the people. For an outsider, the horse world is full of amazing stereotypes – there’s the rural horsey type, the townie racegoer, there’s so much in there.

Martha Terry

H&H features editor

Martha is an experienced journalist who is mad-keen on horses and dogs. Her reporting CV includes the Paris Olympics, European championships, Aachen World Equestrian Festival and World Cup finals. After growing up with assorted liver and white springer spaniels, she enjoyed 14 years with two rescue dogs. Now, her constant companion is Fidget, an extremely energetic and habitually muddy black and white springer. Martha has written on topics as diverse as a top horse’s clone to the best GPS trackers for dogs, as well as equestrian and rural matters for Country Life, The Field, The Times, The Spectator and The Telegraph alongside Horse & Hound.