The Pullein-Thompson Treasury of Horse and Pony Stories

by Christine Pullein-Thompson

  In some places our audiences were so large that we had to do Dick Turpin three times over every evening. I did get very bored at having to go through it so often and we had to think of new things to do to keep up our interest. Felix invented that I should raise my head and give my thoughtless master a kiss with my lips before I died; this upset the audiences very much.

  In the autumn we came near to London and the idea was that we would work our way north and back to winter quarters, except for those who had special Christmas engagements.

  Then one night some men came round to the stable when the performance was over. The stablehand was rubbing me down and Felix was unsticking his moustache. They introduced themselves and asked him out to supper. He seemed very excited and, changing quickly, he went off with them, leaving me to the stablehand.

  Next day Felix seemed very thoughtful and he had a long talk with His Nibs. Our show went on as usual but we gave up rehearsing The Tailor of Brentford. I sensed that something was wrong and I lost some of my enthusiasm. But he didn’t say anything until one morning when we had just come to a new town. Then he came rushing into my tent; he was dressed very smartly in his best suit. He put his arms round my neck and said, “I’m sorry, Ebony, I feel a brute, a complete cad, doing this to you. You’ve been magnificent, you did everything you could to make the show a success, you never let me down once and now I’m walking out on you. But you see, old horse, it’s the chance of a lifetime, you can’t refuse a part like this. You just can’t!

  “If I had the ready cash I’d buy you from His Nibs and take you with me, but I haven’t and no stable to put you in either. I’m truly sorry, old horse.” He gave me a carrot and ran out of my stable. I couldn’t believe that our happy times together had ended as suddenly and finally as this. For a day or two I thought he might come back. I would look for him in the mornings and when the time for our performance came, I felt sure that he would come bursting in, sticking on his moustache and telling me some new plan. Sometimes I thought I heard his voice and would whinny excitedly, but he never came.

  Then I learned, from the talk of the stablehands, that he had been offered a good part at a big London theatre and might well become rich and famous. For a time I clung to the idea that His Nibs was finding another Dick Turpin to ride me and things would go on much as before, but men appeared who looked at my teeth and felt my legs and had me trotted up so I knew I was to be sold.

  “Too old for a hunter,” they all said, and, “Who wants a circus horse, he’ll be doing tricks in the road.” And they haggled with His Nibs over the price.

  At last a man with very fair hair came; he said that he owned a large riding-school and livery stable in London and needed a reliable, well-mannered horse for his lady clients and was willing to pay a good price for the right animal. So I changed hands again; and that marked the end of my time as Black Bess and the beginning of a new, but less exciting, life in London.

  The Race

  Josephine Pullein-Thompson

  Mr Brake liked the idea of the island’s annual pony race and spent the evening preparing his cameras. The difficulty of reading or playing any of Jeremy’s card-games by oil lamp, especially as Mr Brake would only allow the tiniest of flames in case they blackened or cracked the glass shades, drove everyone to bed early, with the result that they all wakened much earlier than usual and were on the terrace eating melon for breakfast and admiring the sun climbing higher and higher over the sea by seven-thirty. By nine they were all waiting round the replacement hire car, which Jeremy said disdainfully was even more of a banger than the first, while Mr Brake assisted Mrs Brake, still limping from her encounter with a sea urchin, into the front seat.

  There were no signposts pointing the way to the town. With only one tarred road on the island, winding its way across the centre to join the tiny port on one side to the town on the other, the inhabitants of the little Greek island obviously thought signs unnecessary. But where, close to town, the road divided, a notice announced camping and an arrow pointing along the lower road above the sea indicated the direction.

  “Left, Dad, left,” shrieked Mandy.

  Jeremy was grumbling about the car, “It’s burning oil, Dad. Can’t you smell it?”

  “The brakes work and the clutch works,” his father answered, “and that’s more than you could say for the first one. The chappie at the garage told me that all the cars here are completely clapped out: it’s the roads, or the tracks they use as roads…”

  Kate Morrison and Fergus Stapleton, Mandy and Jeremy’s friends, who had happily accepted the Brakes’s invitation to join them on this holiday, were tired of hearing about the car.

  Kate dug her elbow into Fergus. “Ponies,” she said softly.

  “Race horses,” said Fergus with a grin as they gazed out at the two long-legged boys riding a grey and a bay.

  “They’re not as good-looking as Nico,” announced Mandy.

  “If you ask me the whole thing’s going to be pretty grotty,” complained Jeremy. “They’re all going to be bareback and in head collars, and those two haven’t plaited their manes or anything.”

  “I think it’s rather nice; you obviously don’t have to be rich to ride,” argued Kate. “Though I agree the ponies could do with a groom.”

  “Right, Dad,” shrieked Mandy. “There it is, beyond the camping field. Look, there are masses of people going in.”

  They joined a jam of cars. The drivers were excitable, hooting their horns and revving up their engines as a crowd of brightly- dressed holidaymakers threaded its way through and a mule – long-eared and serious- looking, with four straw bales piled high on his wooden pack-saddle – squeezed past from the opposite direction.

  “I’m certainly going to get some pictures today,” said Mr Brake in satisfied tones. “No sunbathers on the beach this year, but a slice of real Greek life. Pity about your foot, Cynny, or you could have driven while I shot this lot.”

  “Dad’s dotty. He enjoys looking at his snaps and showing off his films when he gets home much more than the actual holiday,” Mandy explained to Kate.

  “There’s Sophia,” said Kate as the car advanced into a sudden space, “and that must be the hippodrome.”

  “It doesn’t look much like an English racecourse.” Mandy sounded disappointed.

  The field, by far the largest and flattest they had seen on the island, was of golden stubble. The com had been recently cut and bales of straw lay about everywhere. Some had been arranged as seats around the course, which was square and had been fenced off by stout posts with rails along their tops and more rails, crisscrossed between the posts, filling in the gap below. There was an outer and an inner fence and it looked as though the ponies would race round the track between the two, which had been harrowed to make the rock-hard ground soft and dusty.

  “No green turf, no white paint, no grandstands.Disgraceful!” announced Fergus, putting on a pompous voice. “Don’t you agree, Jeremy?”

  “These foreigners have no idea,” said Kate, stifling a giggle. “Whoever heard of a square racecourse?”

  “Do stop, Dad; can’t you park here? I want to go and talk to Sophia and I don’t want a ten-mile walk,” wailed Mandy.

  “You can’t park here, it’s in full sun. We’ll be roasted alive when we come back. Can’t you find some shade?” demanded Jeremy.

  “Right, all kids out then. I’m going to drive your mother over to the rails.”

  They began to run back, dodging through the crowd, to where they had seen Sophia.

  But there was soon a wail from Mandy. “Wait for me, Kate! This stubble’s prickly. It’s making holes in my feet.”

  Kate sighed and waited. “Why must you always dress up so?” she asked. “It’s much more comfortable in jeans and trainers.”

  “She won’t learn, she’s too thick,” Jeremy, walking on, shouted back over his shoulder.

  “She doesn’t understand that this island is country, real country, with goats and sheep and pro
per fields, not a suburb like Ralston,” said Fergus, waiting for Kate.

  “I’m not dressed up; everyone wears dresses and sandals at the seaside,” argued Mandy, hobbling after them.

  Jeremy had found Sophia waiting with Mya, her pony, but couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “How’s Mya?” asked Kate, patting the pinkish-grey neck.

  “She is a little nervous, but I am much worse; 1 am nervous for myself and for Nico,” Sophia answered with a forced smile.

  “I’ve counted twenty-three ponies so far,” announced Jeremy, “but they look a pretty ropey bunch; nothing that looks nearly as good as Vrondi.”

  Kate looked round. Most of the ponies were hitched to the sagging barbed-wire which fenced the field: bays, browns, blacks, duns and greys, they stood patiently, with hanging heads and half-closed eyes, dozing in the still, gentle, morning sunshine. Two who were awake, were giving angry squeals every time they touched noses; others were having their photographs taken by the mainland Greek families who seemed to make up most of the crowd. Doting fathers were plonking little children on the ponies’ backs and snapping them with expensive cameras.

  “You can’t call those two ropey,” said Kate, pointing across the field. Two grey stallions were surrounded by a group of boys who seemed to be inciting them to fight. One stallion was almost white. High-crested and proud in carriage, he was obviously in the prime of life. The other, iron-grey and less powerful in build, looked younger. As they reared up and boxed with their forehoofs the boys cheered. The ponies squealed and bit, then reared again.

  “It’s a good thing they’re not shod,” said Fergus, hearing the blows thudding home.

  “That’s Mr Pappas, Vrondi’s owner,” said Sophia, pointing to a small, swarthy man wearing what seemed to be the farmers’ uniform of trousers, short-sleeved shirt and straw hat. He was hurrying towards the boys, shouting at them in Greek. “He also owns Hyoni, the white stallion, who breeds excellent mules. Hyoni is very popular with the farmers, but Mr Anesti, who is the president of the island Horse Society, will not register him in the first grade of ponies because he is too large and has imported blood.”

  “He looks lovely, rather like the bigger sort of Welsh pony,” observed Kate.

  “Surely it’s time they got started,” said Jeremy with an impatient glance at his watch.

  “What staggers me is that there doesn’t seem to be any girl riders,” Fergus told Sophia. “In England it’s the other way round; at least, there’s usually about five girls to every boy.”

  “The island girls do not ride, it is not considered correct; they are very quiet and old-fashioned. In Athens plenty of girls ride, but there it is very expensive. As I am half English I do not count as an islander, so I can do as I please. My grandfather does not mind me riding, but he does not like the idea of the race. He will only let me ride Mya, who has no chance. He has found boys to ride his faster ponies, Libertas and Kima.”

  “How mean can you get? Now I’ve heard that I’m really glad I don’t live here,” decided Mandy.

  “It might be fun changing things,” suggested Kate. “I’d start a special race for girls and some showjumping classes.”

  “I like this,” said Fergus, who was examining the spoon-shaped piece of leather, decorated with a turquoise ornament, which dangled in the centre of Mya’s forehead.

  “It’s a charm,” explained Sophia. “You need them today because all the horrible characters like Andony Komas will be going round trying to put the evil eye on other people’s ponies.”

  “You don’t believe that, do you?” Jeremy sounded scornful.

  “It happens. They come up and praise your pony, that’s the most usual way, and he suddenly goes lame or starts colic. I think I’d better go and put my name down. Will you hold Mya for me?” She looked at Kate. “Don’t let anyone admire her. Well, it doesn’t matter about the tourists, but not the islanders and especially not Andony.”

  “Which is he?” asked Kate, looking round anxiously.

  “The fat one over there. Fat and quite fair, wearing a red T-shirt and cantering about on a dapple-grey.”

  Mr Brake appeared, a camera swinging from either shoulder.

  “You’ve got hold of a pony already, that’s a bit of luck. Up you get, Mandy, and I’ll take a picture.”

  “No, we can’t ride her, she’s just about to go in the race,” Kate told him hastily. “We’re looking after her.”

  “Well, stand in a bit closer then. Jeremy, get behind Kate, that’s better. Now Fergus, you sit down in front of the pony. Great. All look this way, smile.”

  Sophia came running back. “We are going to have the parade now,” she told them. “We lead the ponies round the track for everyone to see. You must go and find a place by the rails.”

  “I’d hate to be the only girl,” said Mandy as they hurried towards the rails. “The boys aren’t paying poor Sophia any attention at all; even Nico’s pretending she’s not there.”

  “Oh, it’s not that bad. I’ve been the only male in the ride at Mrs Kark’s,” Fergus told her.

  “That’s quite different, you weren’t cold-shouldered, made to feel you oughtn’t to have been there.”

  They found Mrs Brake sitting on a bale of straw and looking bored.

  “The sun’s beginning to get hot,” she said, “I wish I had a parasol. Do put on some more sunscreen, Mandy, your nose is catching the sun and the last thing I want is a permanently red-nosed daughter.”

  “No, that would be the last straw,” agreed Jeremy. “Mandy, the red-nosed reindeer,” he chanted.

  “Oh, shut up!” Mandy hit out at him.

  “Here are the ponies,” said Kate hastily. The riders were now wearing large, home-made numbers on their backs. Most of them were boys of fourteen or fifteen and they looked very tall walking beside their ponies, none of which was more than thirteen hands.

  But there was one boy, a smaller edition of Nico only his skin was even darker and his black curls tighter, who didn’t look more than ten and was obviously frightened of his pony, a very pretty, slender youngster, brown with a white blaze.

  “They’d all get nought for turnout at the most hopeless Pony Club rally,” announced Jeremy scornfully as he looked along the line of riders who were mostly dressed in jeans, T-shirts and trainers. A few wore shorts and sandals, one had bare feet. The ponies, too, had a workaday look; only the charms on their head collars showed it was a special occasion.

  “Yes, and what would Mrs Kark say? Bare feet and not a crash-cap in sight,” added Mandy, for once in agreement with her brother.

  “Well, I suppose it’s not so dangerous as the ponies aren’t shod,” said Kate. “I mean kicks on the head and having your toes stamped on are nothing like so bad with a plain hoof.”

  “Who’s going to win, that’s the question?” said Fergus, looking at the ponies carefully. “Vrondi seems fit and eager to go, which is more than you can say for some of them. That bay, number nine, looks fast, and the taller of the two iron-greys.”

  “I quite like the look of Andony, whatever Sophia says. At least he’s cheerful and talking to everyone,” Mandy pointed out. “He’s not being silent and stuck-up like Nico.”

  “Nico’s probably got the needle,” Kate defended him. “Now what’s happening, are they all going out?”

  “They’re getting into heats; you didn’t think they’d race the whole lot at once, did you?” asked Jeremy.

  There seemed to be a lot of argument about who should be in which heat and while the boys protested and the officials shouted commandingly, most of the ponies went back to sleep. One enjoyed a very thorough roll in the dust of the harrowed track, only a few, Vrondi among them, seemed at all excited.

  “Nico’s in the first one,” announced Fergus as the argument ended and six ponies came forward and lined up, their riders standing beside them.

  Suddenly, at the starter’s command, the riders vaulted on and the ponies surged forward. A tall boy, his lon
g legs wrapped round the belly of his bay pony, took the lead. Vrondi, who had started slowly, and an iron-grey, disputed second place. Behind them the pretty brown youngster bucked. It was a huge buck. His rider shot into the air and landed on his back with a painful-sounding thud. To Kate’s surprise he jumped up, smiling, and pursued his pony round the course. The others raced on. Nico and Vrondi had drawn ahead of the iron-grey, but the long-legged boy on the bay seemed to have an unassailable lead. Then, as they came into the fourth corner, the bay stopped abruptly. Ears back and eyes rolling he began to nap towards the entrance. The iron-grey, going fast and not very steerable in a head collar, ignored his rider’s frantic tugs and cannoned into the bay. The riderless brown vanished through the exit, a stout, dun mare tried to follow him, but was shooed back on course by the crowd. Nico, taking the shortest route on the inner rail, avoided the melee and swept on. Followed by a tiny, very white grey, he started the second circuit. The English cheered him loudly as he raced past, but the long-legged boy had got his bay going again and was gaining on Vrondi length by length.

  “The bay’s the faster,” said Jeremy in an excited voice. “He’s going to catch Nico.”

  “Come on, Nico, come on!” they shouted at him frantically, as he came round the top end and put on a spurt for the winning line. At the same moment the bay swerved towards the exit again. This time his rider was ready for him and whacked him with the rope reins, but Nico, with a quick look back, raced on and won by five or six lengths. The bay came in second, the iron-grey a bad third.

  “Well done, Nico,” they shouted and, hearing English, he looked round and waved.

  An official appeared with a loudhailer; he made an announcement in Greek and the second heat came in.

  “There’s Sophia,” said Mandy. Mya’s strange pink colour made her easy to pick out. She was against a cream pony, a black with a star and a white snip on his nose, two bays, one very lively and the other half asleep, and another of the little white greys.