The Pullein-Thompson Treasury of Horse and Pony Stories

by Christine Pullein-Thompson

  We locked and bolted all the doors and checked the windows before going to bed. And I was glad that our ponies had a shed in which to shelter. But I thought of the pretty caravan shaken by the storm and the foal with his dish face and large eyes. Would he mind being soaked by the rain?

  I slept very lightly, my subconscious sensitive to the dangers of the night, and wakened suddenly, instinctively aware that something was wrong; voices had penetrated a muddled dream. Real voices.

  I leaped from bed and flung back the curtains. The storm had abated. For a moment the moors lay brown and green, below a moon that shone between clouds grey like charcoal.

  The voices had gone, but there were hoof beats on the lane as a grey pony cantered into the distance – Mistletoe – and on her back, crouched forward like a jockey, rode the gypsy boy. For a moment I couldn’t believe my eyes. My mind went blank, then cleared. Mother, who had gone to bed early with a headache, was right; her fear had become a reality. The boy was a thief. But I wouldn’t wake her because she wasn’t well and I was fourteen. He was small and I could deal with him. I dragged on jeans and a sweater, ran to the field, bridle in hand, and called Woodpecker, who trotted up to me. The locked gate had been lifted off its hinges then dragged back into place. A fact, I decided, to point out to the police when I had captured the boy. I vaulted on to Woodpecker, jumped him over the hedge which separated our field from the moor, and set his head against the wind. The night was fresh, the sky a sea of whirling clouds, the air scented with a myriad wild moorland smells.

  “Stop! Hey, stop!”

  My voice was caught and lost by the wind. Now, where the lane became a track, the boy took to the wilder stretches of the moor, confident of Mistletoe’s sure-footedness. He rode so well, so naturally, bareback, it was hard to imagine him in a saddle. Ten or eleven years old, he seemed as agile as an Indian in a well-cast cowboy film. Soon the boulder-strewn ground became hard and soft in turn, treacherous to those who did not know the terrain. Keeping the boy in view, I guided Woodpecker along the sheep paths winding drunkenly round the hillsides. Far away in the valley a single light shone from a house in the village.

  Suddenly I was frightened by the fury which welled up in me. I wanted to drag the boy off Mistletoe, shouting, “She’s mine, mine!” And this hatred drove me on.

  Woodpecker, longing to catch up with Mistletoe, began to gain ground, his hoofs throwing up sparks when steel met flints and sending stones flying down the hillsides. My legs were tired as they pressed his sides and my hands cold as they lay either side of his solid neck. Then I saw the silver phantom which was Mistletoe take off and clear a chasm. Woodpecker followed and, hanging on to his mane, I only just stayed on.

  Then the moon slipped behind clouds, leaving us in semi-darkness with the village light our beacon. Woodpecker was sweating. And Mistletoe? Supposing the wretched little thief broke her wind or lamed her? I hate gypsies, I thought, I hate, hate, hate them!

  “Whoa!” I shouted. “Stop! You’ll ruin her legs on the stones. Stop now and I promise not to call the police.”

  But still the boy rode as though his life depended on reaching the village in record time. And now I could just see his face, wind-weathered brown with black hair and sloe-eyes, for we were gaining on him, and then at last we were beside him.

  “My pony,” I screamed. “Give me back my pony.” Putting out a hand I tried to grab the halter rope.

  “The doctor,” the gypsy boy gasped. “The doctor!”

  “Who’s ill then?” I shouted back.

  “Gran,” he said. “I’ve got to reach the village. Our old horse is done-in, no good on the moors.”

  “You could have asked,” I said, like a prim child in a school classroom, as the ponies, glad to be together again, slowed down to a trot. “You mustn’t take things which don’t belong to you.”

  “She’s dying,” he said. “My gran’s dying. Big storm. Wires down. Me and your little grey are friends.” He patted Mistletoe. “We talk over the fence. She doesn’t mind, she trusts me.”

  “You’ve stolen her.”

  “Borrowed,” he shouted back.

  We crossed a stream, cantered through a line of trees and came to a dark road running like black treacle down the hill.

  “Which house?” He turned his flat face to me.

  “The one with the light, I think.” We dismounted outside together and I pulled the old-fashioned bell.

  “Come, come quickly,” the boy said, clasping his hands together, Mistletoe’s halter rope tucked under one arm. Then a light came on in the hall; there were footsteps, the pulling back of a bolt, and an elderly man in a dressing-gown looking at us with bleary eyes.

  “Yes?”

  “Gran,” the boy said.

  “One of the travellers, are you? And you?” He strained his eyes. “The Macdonald girl?”

  “The caravan’s by our house. The old lady’s very ill.” My voice sounded too cool for the awful news it brought and the conflict raging inside myself.

  “Good heavens! You’re not out alone? Your mother? Couldn’t she bring you by car?”

  “Please come quickly,” I said. “Mum’s asleep.”

  “But what if she wakes and finds you gone? Dangerously ill, did you say?”

  “Very bad,” the boy replied. “Doesn’t move any more.”

  “I’ll be there,” the doctor said. “Just let me get some trousers on.”

  We rode back together, as the dawn spread islands of pink and grey across a sky which had lost its anger. Cocks started to crow and we heard a cow bellowing for a bull and, in the distance, dogs barking. We didn’t speak much because we found it hard to understand each other, for now that the emergency was over, the boy mumbled.

  When we got back the doctor’s car was parked by the caravan. The boy handed me Mistletoe and ran off without a word and I thought he should at least have thanked me. I tied the ponies to a post and fetched the key, unlocked the padlock, dragged the gate open and put them back in the field, where they rolled, caking their sweaty bodies with mud. Mum was still asleep.

  Crawling back into bed, I could not believe the ride had actually happened. Would Mum believe me? Reliving the chase, I heard the ambulance arrive at the caravan and the gypsies’ grey lurcher barking. So, I thought, it is real and his gran is going to hospital. And the boy? Is he asleep or lying awake like me?

  “Have they gone?” my mother shouted against the nine o’clock news, as she poured out her cornflakes at breakfast time.

  “Who?”

  “The gypsies.”

  “No, no. I’m sure they haven’t gone.”

  Then we heard the garden gate click open, slow footsteps on the path and a whinny. “It’s the man,” my mother said. “And he’s brought the foal with him. I expect he wants us to buy it from him. Gypsies are always selling something. They would sell their own grandmothers if they got the chance.”

  I went to the door.

  “Take care. Put the chain up,” my mother warned. The boy’s father stood there with the skewbald foal. His eyes were dark, too, and his brown face weathered like the rocks on the moor.

  “We don’t buy at the door.” My mother hovered behind me.

  “It’s for you,” the man said, pushing the foal forwards.

  “Me?”

  “You let us have the grey pony,” he said. “The doctor was just in time, and the ambulance men with the oxygen. I am a Romany. Romany people do not forget.”

  “But, but…” I meant to say, “But I can’t.” Then I saw that the man’s pride demanded that he should present me with this foal and that I should accept. “Are you sure? Your son…? He rides beautifully.”

  “Please take her,” the man said quietly. “We leave now to be nearer the hospital, at the roadside.”

  He thrust the halter rope into my hand, which looked ridiculously white next to his. He turned away as I called out my thanks.

  I remembered how fiercely possessive I had been of Mistletoe, how
I had hated seeing the boy on her back, and felt ashamed.

  “What is it? Doesn’t he want money?” my mother asked.

  “It’s a long story and you’re never going to believe me,” I said. “But you had a headache and…”

  I wanted to ask the boy to come and ride with me, but his father was striding purposely away, so, instead, I called, “Thank you, thank you very much,” again. And I put my arm round the neck of the foal, who must have been about six months old, and tried to comfort him as his mother pulled the caravan away up the lane towards the city nine miles away.

  Only Five Days Left

  Christine Pullein-Thompson

  Everyone knew Astronaut. He had won literally hundreds of prizes. I had sold my junior jumper to buy him – my father finding the extra money – and now he was stopping and I knew it was my fault. He was a rangy sixteen-two liver-chestnut and his previous owner had said, “You will go straight to the top on him, there’s no doubt about that.”

  Then I had ridden him over an enormous course which he had jumped flawlessly. And now he was stopping. I lay in bed imagining the remarks which would pass when he stopped with me in public. “He can’t ride that horse and he hasn’t got a clue. What a shame.”

  Next day my father and I sat in the kitchen trying to work out what was wrong. Years ago my father had jumped for England. “He always stops at the third in a combination,” he said after some time spent lighting his pipe. “So we’ll concentrate on that.”

  “There’s only five days left until our first show,” I reminded him. “What about a short term solution, a change of bit or a martingale?”

  “No, you stick to your snaffle. Come on, out into the paddock and we’ll get started.”

  I tacked up Astronaut. He was a kind horse, the sort which puts his head down to be bridled and will gallop till he drops dead.

  I loosened Astronaut up while Father made a combination of fences, a gate, an upright fence and then a small rail fence with a ground line.

  “We must rebuild his confidence,” he said.

  “What, in five days?”

  “We can try.”

  “If I stop at the show I shall look the biggest fool in all England,” I said.

  “You are not going to stop,” replied my father.

  “But it must be me. I must be doing something wrong,” I argued.

  I rode over the combination half a dozen times, then Father raised the last fence as high as the others and Astronaut jumped that, too. We rewarded him handsomely with horse cubes.

  “We’ll send him down the lane tomorrow, loose. We’ll have a pile of carrots at the end, that should whet his appetite,” my father said.

  I hacked him during the afternoon and he felt great. I dreamed that night that all my friends were laughing at me, sitting like sparrows on a stable door. And I knew why they were laughing: Astronaut had stopped three times in the young riders’ open class.

  The next day we sent Astronaut down the lane. He was a bit apprehensive at first, then he started to enjoy it. By the time we had finished, he was jumping a four-foot six combination without putting a hoof wrong.

  “You’ll jump for England yet,” Father said.

  “He may, but I won’t,” I replied gloomily.

  I jumped Astronaut once more before the show. I got a few strides wrong, otherwise everything went like clockwork.

  A crowd of Astronaut admirers appeared as soon as I arrived at the show. My legs felt like jelly. I was wishing I had bought an unknown horse which I could have produced like a rabbit out of a hat.

  Mark, a friend of mine, called, “He won’t get round. He’ll stop somewhere, you’ll see.”

  “You mean I can’t ride him. Is that what you mean?” I asked.

  “I leave that for you to decide,” Mark said, riding away on a large grey.

  “I’m surprised that they let you have him; I am honestly,” said one of my female friends. “And I’m surprised your father bought him for you.”

  At last I was waiting to go into the ring.

  “Don’t listen to what anyone says,” advised Father. “Just ride the best you can. And don’t worry about the combination, because if you do Astronaut will too.”

  The fences looked enormous. It is a big leap from novice to open classes; even the atmosphere is different, with grooms instead of parents and bigger horses. Did I imagine it? Or did a hush fall as I entered the arena? The commentator announced me as Darren Shore riding that well-known jumper Astronaut for the first time. Somewhere in the stands Astronaut’s previous owner was watching, waiting to see how I performed. But now the bell had gone.

  Astronaut reached into his bit and I turned for the first fence, he lengthened his stride. I tried to keep him balanced as fence followed fence. I checked him a little for the combination. One, two, three, the last fence was a spread. After that it was plain sailing; then a burst of applause as we rode out. Father was waiting, his face creased in smiles.

  “It was all right wasn’t it?” I cried, throwing myself to the ground. “I didn’t let him down, did I? I rode all right after all.”

  “You were terrific,” Father said. “You bought a stopper and he didn’t stop.”

  “That’s right,” cried Mark. “He’s been stopping for weeks; no one expected you to get round. That’s why he was sold, didn’t you know?”

  I looked at my father.

  “I didn’t tell you, because if you had known, you would have expected it, and then he would have gone on stopping. He needed a change of bit and a change of rider and a bit more kindness. He’ll be all right now,” he said.

  “But he jumped all right when I bought him,” I said.

  “Think back; was there a combination?” my father asked.

  I thought. “No, there wasn’t, was there?” I said at last. “He had lost his nerve, hadn’t he?”

  “That’s right, and we’ve cured him. But don’t get too big for your boots, there’s still the jump off,” Father said. “Take it fairly steady today; next week you can speed up a bit. You are on the road to being a champion but we must take it steady. You’ve got plenty of time now.”

  Shandy

  Christine Pullein-Thompson

  We once owned a pony called Shandy Gaff. We bought him as a sucker at a sale of New Forest ponies at Reading Market. He had just jumped out of his pen and bloodied his nose falling on hard concrete the other side. He was the colour of lemon shandy with a little white star and trickle down his face, and he was very cheap!

  Jumping, we soon saw, was Shandy’s speciality. We took him for walks with us like a dog and although he was then only just over eleven hands, he jumped all the stiles with gusto. He also jumped from field to field at home for sheer enjoyment.

  One day Shandy overdid his jumping and slipped his stifle. The vet said he must rest, so we tethered him in the paddock on a rope tied to a stake with a swivel. The stake was driven deep into the ground so that there was no chance that the rope could wind round it. All went well at first, then one afternoon we took Shandy into the kitchen and fed him handfuls of coarse oatmeal from the bin in which it was kept for making porridge. Shandy liked the kitchen. It was warm, with an Aga and red flagstoned floor.

  It was autumn, with rain in the air, so that night he was tethered again in the shelter of a tree. We slept soundly, unaware that the sky was stormy and tempestuous, and in the morning we came down to find the kitchen in chaos. Broken eggs lay on the wet floor, the oatmeal bin was tipped over and empty, a box of cutlery lay upside down amongst the eggs. The door was wide open, for our father had come in late from a meeting and not latched it securely. Who could have caused the chaos? There were little hoofmarks here and there on the floor and our first thought was Shandy! But, on looking out of the window, we saw that he was standing docilely beside his tethering stake, back to the wind. The rain had stopped. Yet he was the only pony who knew about the oatmeal bin, although there were others who had come for brief moments into the kitchen.

>   For a while we were mystified, until the time came to take Shandy a drink and an armful of hay. He wasn’t thirsty, the night’s rain had wetted him enough, but as he stretched his neck to pull at the hay, we saw that his rope was severed. In a flash we knew what had happened. He had broken free, jumped the palings into the garden, crossed the rose bed and made his way to the kitchen. Then, after satisfying his curiosity, filling his belly with oatmeal and having a warm-up by the Aga, he had returned to his allotted place.

  But why the deceit? Had he a sense of right and wrong? Or did he simply return to be in the right place for his food and drink? We shall never know.

  Status Symbol

  Christine Pullein-Thompson

  The pony was lying in his bare, wire-fenced field. It was February, the wind was blowing like a tempest and no one had broken the ice on the water trough.

  “We can’t just walk past,” David said, and I knew it was true. We had to do something.

  “Let’s see if the Bullocks are in,” I cried, throwing down my bike and running towards the door of their modem bungalow. David banged the knocker, I rang the bell. A small tabby cat was miaowing by the front door.

  “Let’s go home and ask Mum what to do,” suggested David, who was younger than me. We pedalled madly. Our own pony, Dreamy, was still in the stable munching hay. Mum was reading in the kitchen.

  “The Bullocks’ pony is lying down, she looks ill; and there’s no one in,” I said.

  “I think she’s dying,” added David emphatically.

  “There’s no hay or anything,” I said.

  David looked like Mum – broad shouldered, dark haired – and he’s sensible. I am more like Dad, with long legs, long hands, high cheekbones, and hair the colour of beech nuts.