Equine cartoonist

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

- Martha Terry

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.

For me it’s a whole new and very visual world with all the different disciplines, the characters, the props, situations and different backcloths.