No political story this year hit quite as hard as the news that Patrick, the Shetland pony mayor of Cockington in Devon, had been barred from his local pub. The outrage over this injustice ripped through the media; first local, then national, then international. Four months later, it is finally time to ask: has Patrick recovered?
“Patrick is doing really well, and he’s enjoying still being the mayor of Cockington,” says his owner, Hannah Petrakis, who looks after Patrick with her husband, Kirk, noting with pride that “he’s gone pretty much worldwide in the media. He’s been on German TV several times now.”
If you missed it, the story might need some explaining. Until this summer, Patrick – whose role as mayor is unofficial, non-legislative and, according to Petrakis, largely limited to “opening shops by biting through a ribbon with his teeth” – had been a regular presence at Cockington’s Drum Inn, where he acted as a therapy animal in his own special “interaction pen”. His owners originally began taking Patrick to the pub to get him used to being around people. He likes a Guinness, apparently.
But a week after Patrick was elected mayor, the local council received a strongly worded complaint regarding planning permission for the pen, and the pub turfed him out for good.
For all the novelty of a pony mayor being banned from a pub, the decision to remove the pen had heartbreaking consequences. “Honestly, it was devastating when we had to take it down,” Petrakis says. “Everyone was in tears, because the last person who went in the interaction pen was a child who was terminally ill. It really was a huge deal to some families.”
But out of this tragedy came glorious redemption. Patrick might have been effectively exiled from Cockington, but this has only broadened his field of support. According to Kirk Petrakis, Patrick now works as a therapy animal at Rowcroft Hospice in nearby Torquay, effortlessly brightening the day of whomever he meets.
And by the time you read this, a new interaction pen will already be up and running. Better yet, this one will be mobile. If you live in Devon, there’s a very good chance that Patrick will be coming to your neck of the woods soon.
The media attention is still coming, too. The official Patrick the Pony Facebook page has more than 16,000 followers – many of whom joined after Patrick’s joyful appearance on This Morning in August, which ended with Andi Peters dropping his jaw in amazement as Kirk spontaneously performed a song about what a lovely pony Patrick is.
Don’t think you’ve heard the last of that song. “We’re working with this guy called Rod Davis, who is a friend of Hannah’s dad up in London,” Kirk says. “He used to play with John Lennon in the Quarrymen, and he’s kindly helped us put the music together for the song. A lot of people are saying that it could be Christmas No 1 because it’s so catchy.” May we all learn to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat with the elegance of Patrick the pony mayor of Cockington.
