Advent Calendar 11 - Diana Pullein-Thompson: A Pony for Sale

-
Diana Pullein-Thompson's A Pony for Sale is the story of Martini, the pony who becomes a Christmas present that goes wrong. Broken in by Guy Beaumont, he sells her to the Cox family as an early Christmas present for their daughter, Pip. Pip is initially thrilled by Martini, a far cry from her outgrown patent safety pony, Rex, but Pip is nervous, and inclined to be influenced by others. She is too nervous of her parents to tell them that things are not going well with Martini, too afraid of her friend Tessa to tell her to ride sensibly and not hot Martini up, and too afraid of being despised to ask for help.



After a disastrous hunt in which Martini bolts, Pip finally plucks up the courage to tell her parents how badly things are going. They blame Guy Beaumont, and Martini is sold on to the brutal Lydia Pike. Pip gives up riding altogether shortly afterwards after a fall broke her nerve.




Martini goes on to have a truly terrible time at the hands of Lydia Pike, before being bought by Lettie Lonsdale, who is the polar opposite of Pip, and is able to re-school Martini.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rollkur and the blue tongue

-
I've been meaning to write about this all week, but reading the exclusive in Horse and Hound about the controversy tipped me over the edge. For my non-horsy readers, rollkur is a training/warming up technique used by some dressage riders. It basically involves riding the horse with its jaw pulled in virtually to its chest, in order to increase suppleness. Patrik Kittel , a Swedish competitor in Odense was videoed riding his horse in this way. If you watch the video , you'll see the horse's tongue hanging out - blue. It takes a while before the rider notices this. When he does, he stops, puts the horse's tongue back in, and carries on. There are two things which bother me about this. Firstly, I am fully aware large sections of the dressage world, and some of its brighest stars, consider rollkur perfectly ok, but the FEI guidelines state this practice should only be for short periods, allowing the horse to rest. Patrick Kittel apparently rode the horse for two hou
Read more

Archibald, don't eat the bedclothes

-
Image
My friend Louise sent me this picture today. It's from a children's book with the rather wince-making title For The Wee Ones. I thought, when I read that (because I read the message before I looked at the picture) that the picture was going to be a typical winsome production from the school of artists who think (or who are paid to think) that the child is a thing sent from God and a blissful thing. They had obviously never met a child, and certainly not mine. I should have known Louise better. The artist responsible for Archibald, don't eat the bedclothes slipped this one past the editors. Just look at the poor, broken Mother Rabbit. She knows she has not the faintest chance of being listened to, and poor thing, she is stooped in the way of a mother to whom this is just the lastest in a long line of horror; with nothing good to come. And Archibald is obviously the spawn of the Devil. Just look at those eyes. He'll have the bed after he's finished the bedclothes
Read more

Dick Sparrow - 40 Horse Hitch, and Neil Dimmock's 46 Percherons

-
Image
Here's a clip of Dick Sparrow driving 40 horses. It's an amazing sight, particularly when the shot changes to show the team from the rear and you get the great incongruity of modern American corporate architecture as a background to the wagon and horses. I love the anticipation in the video: the sense of something amazing being just round the corner is palpable. Thanks to Christina Wilsdon for telling me about this world record 46 Percheron hitch (alas just stills) but you get the idea.
Read more