Horses for Courses:
'I've made a decision. The decision is this. I am not able, not willing to run that old horse.'
'But it's not an old horse. It's only just validated. A horse you helped write, let me remind you.'
'Even so,' she replied, now chomping at the bit and hoofing the turf, 'I'm neither ready nor happy to flog a dead horse.'
'Are you deaf?' said the horse-breaker, nostrils flaring and shaking his mane. 'Or just stubborn as an ass? This horse is not dead. It's a champion horse, a pedigree horse. A veritable stud. It is yet to recruit, of course, but that's neither my fault, nor that of the horse. It wasn't we who made a pig's ear of advertising it in time for the new academic year. Running around like headless chickens once the error was realised.'
'No point in that', she replied. 'Shutting the stable door when the horse has already bolted. Out of curiosity and just for the record, were you by any chance born in a barn? I'd wager you were. You have a habit of not closing doors when you leave, you see.'
'Be careful, madam, you should start to watch your back. Never look a gift horse in the mouth, that's what they say and, if you don't jump when I tell you to, you'll be the first to fall; with the imminent redundancies, departmental re-structurings and all.'
'I see your point, appreciate your need to take the reigns, whip us all into shape. But wouldn't it be better to sack those who are long in the tooth? Put them out to graze rather than a young filly like me?'
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