Happy home life near Exeter, coupled with a European and Premiership double, have left the
Scotland captain optimistic
There is a four-legged secret weapon who could yet pierce English hearts at Twickenham next week. His name is Arrow, an
Irish sport horse who stands 17 hands and is high among the reasons why his owner, the Scotland captain Stuart Hogg, has never sounded happier before a Six Nations campaign. “He’s a big old beast,” says Hogg affectionately. “Horses are such wonderful animals. They can make you completely forget about everything else in life.”It is a lovely mental image: Hogg on his trusty hunter, the flying Scotsman at full gallop across the beautiful Devon countryside he calls home. One of the bonuses of moving to Exeter from Glasgow has been the chance to get back in the saddle. As a kid, he even fancied becoming a jockey and grew up around horses in Hawick, his home town in the Borders. The Hawick Common Riding is still a popular annual festival, commemorating among other things the capture of an English flag by a bunch of young locals in 1514.
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