I've always liked animals.

As a bonus, almost all animals seem to like me, too!

But, as any TV presenter will tell you - eventually they'll randomly try to fuck you up.

When I was a young lad of about 4 or 5, I'd already found this affinity with animals starting to grow. We've always had pets of some kind, and there used to be a farm on the road I lived on, so we'd often go for walks to see the animals, and mess about climbing the hay bales in the barns and stuff.

One warm summers day, we went to this farm, and my Mom and older brother were talking to the Farmer, discussing how one of the horses was sick, and other assorted farm-chatter.

I was only half-listening, while I wondered off towards the stable doors that surrounded the main yard.

My nearest horsey-target to stroke was Sugar - a horse getting on in years, but usually quite nice.

So I patted Sugar's nose, ignoring the ears that were suddenly flat against his head (for non-horsey people, that is a Bad Sign), and vaguely heard someone calling a warning to me that the horse was 'ill' and 'grumpy'.

I ignored it and turned back to Sugar...

Then the next thing I saw was darkness.

To be exact, it was darkness and tonsils.

Then the pain came on it's merry way, too.

The sounds of people rushing to my aid was lost on me, as I was more concerned that my head was firmly inside a horses mouth, with big chompy teeth clamped around both cheekbones!

Suddenly there was light again, and I realised I wasn't dead and could now sob to my hearts content, without having to worry about my head being chomped flat.

I had a perfect imprint of both sets of teeth on both sides of my face for a fair old while after that, although I didn't find it quite as impressive as everyone else seemed to.

I went off Sugar from that point on, and have to admit I didn't shed a tear a few years later when he went to that big farm in the sky.

So, if anyone ever tells you a horse is 'grumpy', and you see those ears flatten - run like Hell!

I'm surprised I'm not traumatised for life!