Pony Horse Quotes

The horse grunted softly. He had huge teeth, Clary noticed uneasily; each one the size of a Pez dispenser. She imagined those teeth sinking into her leg and thought of all the girls she'd known in middle school who'd wanted ponies of their own. She wondered if they were insane.

Kate smirked. "What?" "Your horse looks pink." "So?" "If you paste some stars on her butt you'll be riding My Little Pony." "Bugger off." I patted the mare's neck. "Don't listen to her, Sugar. You are the cutest horsey ever. The correct name for her color is strawberry roan, by the way." "Strawberry Shortcake, more like it. Does Strawberry Shortcake know you stole her horse? She will be berry, berry angry with you." I looked at her from under half-lowered eyelids. "I can shoot you right here, on this road, and nobody will ever find your body.

I hope you feel better about yourself. I hope you feel alive. I hope that good things happen to you, and I hope that when the inevitable bad things happen you can handle them and learn a lesson and move on. I hope you know you're not alone and I hope you spend plenty of time with your family and/or friends and I hope you write more and get a seven-figure book deal. I hope next year no more celebrities die and I hope you get an iPhone if you want one. Or maybe a pony. I hope someone writes a song for you on Valentines Day that's a bit like Hey There Delilah, and I hope they have a good singing voice, or at least one better than mine. I hope that you accept yourself the way you are, and figure out that losing 20 pounds isn't going to magically make you love yourself. I hope you read a lot. I hope you don't have to almost die to figure out how valuable life is. I hope you find the perfect nail polish/digital camera/home/life partner. I hope you stop being jealous of others. I hope you feel good, about yourself and the people around you and the world. I hope you eat heaps of salt and vinegar chips because they're the best kind. I hope you accomplish all your hopes & dreams & aspirations and are blissfully happy & get married to Edward Cullen/George Clooney/Megan Fox/Angelina Jolie (delete whichever are inappropriate) & ride a pretty white horse into the sunset & I hope it's all sweet and wonderful because you deserve it because you did well this year in the face of sparkly vampires/great evil/low self-esteem.

No matter how good a man is, there's always some horse can pitch him.

Twilight is to Vampires what My Little Pony is to Kentucky Derby Winning Horses.

In all honesty, I’d enjoyed the horse ride more than the man ride. At least the horse had been a stallion. Looking back, my lab TA was more like a Shetland pony—hairy and small.

For that pony had got tangled up in the cowboy's heartstrings a heap more than that cowboy wanted to let on, even to himself. He couldn't get away from how he missed him.

The water you kids were playing in, he said, had probably been to Africa and the North Pole. Genghis Khan or Saint Peter or even Jesus may have drunk it. Cleopatra might have bathed in it. Crazy Horse might have watered his pony with it. Sometimes water was liquid. Sometimes it was rock hard- ice. Sometimes it was soft- snow. Sometimes it was visible but weightless- clouds. And sometimes it was completely invisible- vapor- floating up into the the sky like the soals of dead people. There was nothing like water in the world, Jim said. It made the desert bloom but also turned rich bottomland into swamp. Without it we'd die, but it could also kill us, and that was why we loved it, even craved it, but also feared it. Never take water forgranted, Jim said. Always cherish it. Always beware of it.

The story is told that when Joe was a child his cousins emptied his Christmas stocking and replaced the gifts with horse manure. Joe took one look and bolted for the door, eyes glittering with excitement. 'Wait, Joe, where are you going? What did ol' Santa bring you?' According to the story Joe paused at the door for a piece of rope. 'Brought me a bran'-new pony but he got away. I'll catch 'em if I hurry.' And ever since then it seemed that Joe had been accepting more than his share of hardship as good fortune, and more than his share of shit as a sign of Shetland ponies just around the corner, Thoroughbred stallions just up the road.

I had hated these ponies for the part they played in my father's death but now I realized the notion was fanciful, that it was wrong to charge blame to these pretty beasts who knew neither good nor evil but only innocence. I say that of these ponies. I have known some horses and a good many more pigs who I believe harbored evil intent in their hearts. I will go further and say all cats are wicked, though often useful. Who has not seen Satan in their sly faces? Some preachers will say, well, that is superstitious "claptrap." My answer is this: Preacher, go to your Bible and read Luke 8: 26-33

Why, a trick horse is kind of like an actor—no dignity, no character of his own.

There was so much life wrapped up in that pony's hide that it was mighty hard for him to settle down and behave...he sometimes had to bust out and do things that wasn't at all proper...

A Blessing Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota, Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass. And the eyes of those two Indian ponies Darken with kindness. They have come gladly out of the willows To welcome my friend and me. We step over the barbed wire into the pasture Where they have been grazing all day, alone. They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness That we have come. They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other. There is no loneliness like theirs. At home once more, They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness. I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms, For she has walked over to me And nuzzled my left hand. She is black and white, Her mane falls wild on her forehead, And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist. Suddenly I realize That if I stepped out of my body I would break Into blossom.

Alec put his hands up. “Okay, stop.” The four vampires stared at him. “Horses? As in equine, My Little Pony, clippety-clop fucking horses?

Don't you mind being short?' she blurted. He spread his small hands and looked at them. 'I am a magician, not a princess. A pony costs less to keep than a horse, which means I can buy more books.' He paused. 'It is not always a bad thing, to be overlooked.

Rooster said, "Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!" and he took the reins in his teeth and pulled the other saddle revolver and drove his spurs into the flanks of his strong horse Bo and charged directly at the bandits. It was a sight to see. He held the revolvers wide on either side of the head of his plunging steed. The four bandits accepted the challenge and they likewise pulled their arms and charged their ponies ahead.

You seem to be trying to ride a pony named Trouble all the way to the border.

He moved quickly away from her through the ring, his whole body starting forward with the big animal in two-point and then -- the horse's legs extended before and behind her, a carousel pony but real, the immense thrust invisible to anyone but the boy on the creature's back -- he was rising, rising, rising. . . And aloft.

I often hear skeptics say that, if psychic behavior was real, the psychics would be playing the stock markets or the ponies. In my experience, many of them do. There is, in fact, a kind of secret level of activity in which psychics consult to major corporations and businesses. People seem embarrassed to admit this activity but it takes place, just as you'd expect it to.

strawberry roan, a black and brown skewbald and a motley assortment of buckskins and bays. At the rear of the herd was a grey mare and a chestnut skewbald with a white face, both of them with foals running at their feet.

Then she told me that the Americans with Disabilities Act was recently interpreted as allowing “people with anxiety disorders to travel with an emotional-support pony on airlines.” So basically I could bring a goddamn pony on board with me. I’m pretty sure a pony wouldn’t fit under my seat or in my lap, but I rather liked the idea of a small medicinal horse standing in the aisle beside me while I braided his mane.

Nothing is a masterpiece - a real masterpiece - till it's about two hundred years old. A picture is like a tree or a church, you've got to let it grow into a masterpiece. Same with a poem or a new religion. They begin as a lot of funny words. Nobody knows whether they're all nonsense or a gift from heaven. And the only people who think anything of 'em are a lot of cranks or crackpots, or poor devils who don't know enough to know anything. Look at Christianity. Just a lot of floating seeds to start with, all sorts of seeds. It was a long time before one of them grew into a tree big enough to kill the rest and keep the rain off. And it's only when the tree has been cut into planks and built into a house and the house has got pretty old and about fifty generations of ordinary lumpheads who don't know a work of art from a public convenience, have been knocking nails in the kitchen beams to hang hams on, and screwing hooks in the walls for whips and guns and photographs and calendars and measuring the children on the window frames and chopping out a new cupboard under the stairs to keep the cheese and murdering their wives in the back room and burying them under the cellar flags, that it begins even to feel like a religion. And when the whole place is full of dry rot and ghosts and old bones and the shelves are breaking down with old wormy books that no one could read if they tried, and the attic floors are bulging through the servants' ceilings with old trunks and top-boots and gasoliers and dressmaker's dummies and ball frocks and dolls-houses and pony saddles and blunderbusses and parrot cages and uniforms and love letters and jugs without handles and bridal pots decorated with forget-me-nots and a piece out at the bottom, that it grows into a real old faith, a masterpiece which people can really get something out of, each for himself. And then, of course, everybody keeps on saying that it ought to be pulled down at once, because it's an insanitary nuisance.

wherever there were horses or ponies the mushrooms always sprang up.

At that moment, in her heart she knew that one day he would be the greatest horse of them all.

Just like when I was in high school and thought the song “Pony” by Ginuwine was about riding horses.

She wasn’t any kind of show pony.

To shrink back from all that can be called Nature into negative spirituality is as if we ran away from horses instead of learning to ride. There is in our present pilgrim condition plenty of room (more room than most of us like) for abstinence and renunciation and mortifying our natural desires. But behind all asceticism the thought should be, ‘Who will trust us with the true wealth if we cannot be trusted even with the wealth that perishes?’ Who will trust me with a spiritual body if I cannot control even an earthly body? These small and perishable bodies we now have were given to us as ponies are given to schoolboys. We must learn to manage: not that we may some day be free of horses altogether but that some day we may ride bare-back, confident and rejoicing, those greater mounts, those winged, shining and world- shaking horses which perhaps even now expect us with impatience, pawing and snorting in the King’s stables. Not that the gallop would be of any value unless it were a gallop with the King; but how else— since He has retained His own charger—should we accompany Him?

She was a horse lover and she and Whitey kept a mean old paint, a fancy quarter horse/Arabian mix, a roan Appaloosa with one ghost eye named Spook, and a pony. So along with the whiskey and perfume and smoke, she often exuded faint undertones of hay, dust, and the fragrance of horse, which once you smell it you always miss it. Humans were meant to live with the horse.

Have you ever seen a stampede of horses? Do you wonder what the hooves look like from underneath? Have you tasted the blood from biting your own lips because you couldn’t say no loud enough? I never fought back. I didn’t punch him. I kept my thighs tight and closed, but once he’s inside you, you wish you were a streetlamp. A seat belt. A box of nails, of rust, something hard and ruined. You’ll wish you were a wild pony, a slick fish on a line, anything but a woman. Once he’s inside you, you just kind of give up and your eyes glaze over. They stay that way for years

Of course, when selecting my reading material, I stick to the stories suitable for ladies." 'How lovely. What are your favorites?' Mr.Croaksworth asked, and Beatrice cleared her throat. 'Oh, I adore ... anything about women moving from one drawing room to another,' she began. 'And, er, friendships between ... ponies and horses ...' She trailed off, but Mr. Croaksworth nodded vigorously.

No one cared about injuries. Not when you’re flying down the field, you and the horse—” He was suddenly animated. “You’re one being, like a centaur. The best ponies are total athletes. They find the line of the ball without you doing anything. One time I came off—my fault, not the pony’s—and she went on, tearing down the field, and blocked my opponent’s shot as if I were still riding her.

Each-uisce can never be tamed. They may appear as sleek black horses, eerily beautiful, or even ponies, deceptively small. Always their manes and tails are dripping wet, and their eyes glow like a wolf’s.

He was telling us that Thoroughbred racing horses have these companion ponies that always stay by their sides, and I remember thinking, That’s me. I’m a companion pony, and companion ponies don’t solo. They don’t play first chair or audition for All-State or compete nationally or seriously consider a certain performing arts conservatory in New York City like Marguerite had begun insisting. They just don’t.

A landscape glittered behind her voice. There were icicles in it and savage fields of ice, great storms boiling over a flat countryside striped with white rails - a chessboard beneath a storm. Horses were stretched forever at the gallop. Tiny men in silk were brave beyond bearing and sat on the horses like embryos with their knees in their mouths. The gorgeous names of horses were cried from mouth to mouth and circulated in a steam of fame. Lottery, The Hermit, the great mare Sceptre; the glorious ancestress Pocahontas, whose blood ran down like time into her flying children; Easter Hero, the Lamb, that pony stallion.

Maybe he didn't realize it then, but David saved my life. He brought me to the horses, he showed me a world I never knew existed. He was the first person to lift me onto a pony. The first person to lead me around the ring. He opened the door that changed everything for me. He handed me the map that led me out of the same streets that would take his life so many years later. When it came to his safety, David has always been fearless, reckless even. But when it came to me, his little brother, he didn't let me take a single chance. He delivered me to the best, safest place he could find, and then, as always, he slipped away.

ELLE! DID YOU PUT A STUFFED CAT IN MY STUDY?” A pretty woman on the fat pony galloped out of the courtyard, calling over her shoulder. “I thought you might like the company of one of your own kind!” A handsome man emerged from the courtyard, riding the large gelding. “Elle!” “What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue?” the woman laughed. “I look nothing like a cat anymore! Must you continue to obsess over felines?” The man cued his horse into a trot. The woman pulled her pony to a halt a stone’s throw from the farmer and his children. “True. It’s my own fault, I suppose. I shouldn’t have married a man who is prettier than I am.” The man on the mouse-colored gelding looked murderous. The

I was sleeping. What the hell did you wake me up for?” He complains. “You kicked me and made horse noise.” He stares at me blankly for a moment before scoffing at me in disbelief and sliding back down the bed until his head hits the pillow again. “I was having a dream. Now leave me alone and let me go back to sleep.” When he rolls over I shove my hand against his back. “Were you dreaming about horses? You were fucking prancing in your sleep.” Tyler looks over his shoulder at me and I watch his face redden with embarrassment. “What? You’re delusional. I don’t prance.” I just shake my head at him. “You were totally prancing in your sleep. Prancing and Whinnying like a damn Horse.” “You shut your face! Shut your face right now!” he said I shove my finger close to his nose. “No, YOU shut your prancing face, Twilight Sparkle, before my parents hear you. You’re not even supposed to BE here. You were supposed to sneak out of my bedroom window just like always. Get out of my bed!

the reservation population turned out. As Smith walked the horse by, an ancient Indian leaned up and looked the horse over. “Racehorse?” he said. Smith nodded. “Looks like a cow pony to me.”1 Smith was pleased. The rumors followed them west. The backstretch at Hollywood was thick with stories, chief among them that Seabiscuit was lame. The stewards listened and worried that they would be burned by Seabiscuit as Belmont and Suffolk Downs had been. They had some reason to be wary. Earlier in the meet, a much-anticipated meeting between Kentucky Derby winner Lawrin and Preakness winner Dauber had to be canceled at the last moment when Dauber suffered a minor injury. The event had been traumatic for the Hollywood Park officials and seemed to make them overly concerned about Smith. On July 11, 1938, Smith walked Seabiscuit onto the track for his first workout at Hollywood. The trainer didn’t like the looks of the track, which was so deep and crumbly that it was playing at least a second slower than usual.2 “It looked like they were trying to grow corn on the track,” he said.3

Sometimes I liked to forget about the fact that Cholo was not really my horse. Sometimes I liked to imagine that he would be the first of my string of ponies. That someday I would ride him as I made the winning goal at nationals. That much later, he would retire to the greenest, lushest pasture on my farm, where maybe he'd teach my own kids to ride like Angel had taught me. I would visit him every day and bring him an apple and scratch his nose where it had gone gray. Sometimes I just liked to imagine that someone—anyone— I loved could stay.

He crossed the old trace again and he must turn the pony up onto the plain and homeward but the warriors would ride on in that darkness they'd become, rattling past with their stone-age tools of war in default of all substance and singing softly in blood and longing south across the plains to Mexico.

The mythic American character is made up of the virtues of fairness, self-reliance, toughness, and honesty. Those virtues are generally stuffed into a six-foot-tall, dark-haired, can-do kind of guy who is at once a family man, attractive to strange women, carefree, stable, realistic, and whimsical. in the lore of America, that man lives on the Great Plains. he's from Texas, Dodge City, Cheyenne, the Dakotas, or somewhere in Montana. In fact, the seedbed of this American character, from the days of de Tocqueville through Andrew Jackson, Wyattt Earp, Pony Express riders, pioneers, and cowboys to modern caricatures played by actors such as Tom Mix, Gary Cooper, and John Wayne has aways been the frontier. It's a place with plenty of room to roam, great sunsets, clear lines between right and wrong, and lots of horses. It's also a place that does not exist and never has. The truth is that there has never been much fairness out here.

Now driving in a wild frieze of headlong horses with eyes walled and teeth cropped and naked riders with clusters of arrows clenched in their jaws and their shields winking in the dust and pu the far side of the ruined ranks in a piping of boneflutes and dropping down off the sides of their mounts with one heel hung in the withers strap and their short bows flexing beneath the outstretched necks of the ponies until they had circled the company and cut their ranks in two and then rising up again like funhouse figures, some with nightmare faces painted on their breasts, riding down the unhorsed Saxons and spearing and clubbing them and leaping from their mounts with knives and running about on the ground with a peculiar bandylegged trot like creatures driven to alien forms of locomotion and stripping the clothes from the dead and seizing them up by the hair and passing their blades about the skulls of the living and the dead alike and snatching aloft the bloody wigs and hacking and chopping at the naked bodies, ripping off limbs, head, gutting the strange white torsos and holding up great handfuls of viscera, genitals, some of the savages so slathered up with gore they might have rolled in it like dogs and some who fell upon the dying and sodomized them with loud cries to their fellows.

One of the best feelings in the world is waking up and thinking, Ohmygod, I’m late for school! That isn’t the good bit obviously. The good bit comes in a sudden rush a few seconds later when you realise that you don’t have to go to school after all because today isn’t an ordinary Monday—it’s the first day of the summer holidays!

The boy was engrossed, his face in shadow, and he looked like he was playing with small toy horses that could have easily been wooden toys, military or Trojan. Shuggie knew what they really were, that they were the scented dolls, bright and cheerful and for little girls. They were the pretty ponies, and Leek had known. Leek had always known.

If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse’s feet, Don’t go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street, Them that ask no questions isn’t told a lie. Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by! Five and twenty ponies, Trotting through the dark – Brandy for the Parson, ’Baccy for the Clerk. Laces for a lady; letters for a spy, And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by! A Smuggler’s Song – Rudyard Kipling

the group, as the knights preferred stallions—and knelt in the sun-dappled mud and grass of a narrow meadow. Raphael and Percival joined her, kneeling on the other side of the run, two steps back. Mongols at this late stage of their campaign often rode horses other than steppe ponies; war, as Feronantus had observed, was hard on horses, and armies continually replenished their stock. When Mongols rode larger and more complaisant Western horses,

in the group, as the knights preferred stallions—and knelt in the sun-dappled mud and grass of a narrow meadow. Raphael and Percival joined her, kneeling on the other side of the run, two steps back. Mongols at this late stage of their campaign often rode horses other than steppe ponies; war, as Feronantus had observed, was hard on horses, and armies continually replenished their stock. When Mongols rode larger and more complaisant Western horses,

In the third part of the year When men begin to gather fuel Against the coming cold Here hooves run hard on frosty ground Begins our song: For centuries we lived alone high on the moors Herding the deer for milk and cheese For leather and horn Humans came seldom nigh For we with our spells held them at bay And they with gifts of wine and grain Did honour us. Returning at evening from the great mountains Our red hoods rang with bells. Lightly we ran Until before our own green hill There we did stand. She is stolen! She is snatched away! Through watery meads Straying our lovely daughter. She of the wild eyes! She of the wild hair! Snatched up to the saddle of the lord of Weir Who has his castle high upon a crag A league away. Upon the horse of air at once we rode To where Weir's castle looks like a crippled claw Into the moon. And taking form of minstrels brightly clad We paced upon white ponies to the gate And rang thereon "We come to sing unto my lord of Weir A merry song." Into his sorry hall we stepped Where was our daughter bound? Near his chair. "Come play a measure!" "Sir, at once we will." And we began to sing and play To lightly dance in rings and faster turn No man within that hall could keep his seat But needs must dance and leap Against his will This was the way we danced them to the door And sent them on their way into the world Where they will leap amain Till they think one kind thought For all I know they may be dancing still. While we returned with our own Into our hall And entering in Made fast the grassy door. from "The Dancing of the Lord of Weir

I looked back and forth between them, feeling the heat of their anger, the unspoken words swelling in the air like smoke. Jerry took a slow sip from his beer and lit another cigarette. "You don't know anything about that little girl," he told Nona. "You're just jealous because Cap belongs to her now." I could see Nona's heartbeat flutter beneath her t-shirt, the cords tightening in her neck. "Her mommy and daddy might have paid for him," she whispered. "But he's mine." I waited for Jerry to cave in to her, to apologize, to make things right between them. But he held her gaze, unwavering. "He's not." Nona stubbed her cigarette out on the barn floor, then stood. "If you don't believe me," she whispered, "I'll show you." My sister crossed the barn to Cap's stall and clicked her tongue at him. His gold head appeared in the doorway and Nona swung the stall door open. "Come on out." she told him. Don't!" I said, but she didn't pause. Cap took several steps forward until he was standing completely free in the barn. I jumped up, blocking the doorway so that he couldn't bolt. Jerry stood and widened himself beside me, stretching out his arms. "What the hell are you doing?" he asked. Nona stood beside Cap's head and lifted her arms as though she was holding an invisible lead rope. When she began to walk, Cap moved alongside her, matching his pace to hers. Whoa," Nona said quietly and Cap stopped. My sister made small noises with her tongue, whispering words we couldn't hear. Cap's ears twitched and his weight shifted as he adjusted his feet, setting up perfectly in showmanship form. Nona stepped back to present him to us, and Jerry and I dropped our arms to our sides. Ta da!" she said, clapping her hands at her own accomplishment. Very impressive," Jerry said in a low voice. "Now put the pony away." Again, Nona lifted her hands as if holding a lead rope, and again, Cap followed. She stepped into him and he turned on his heel, then walked beside her through the barn and back into his stall. Once he was inside, Nona closed the door and held her hands out to us. She hadn't touched him once. Now," she said evenly. "Tell me again what isn't mine." Jerry sank back into his chair, cracking open a fresh beer. "If that horse was so important to you, maybe you shouldn't have left him behind to be sold off to strangers." Nona's face constricted, her cheeks and neck darkening in splotches of red. "Alice, tell him," she whispered. "Tell him that Cap belongs to me." Sheila Altman could practice for the rest of her life, and she would never be able to do what my sister had just done. Cap would never follow her blindly, never walk on water for her. But my eyes traveled sideways to Cap's stall where his embroidered halter hung from its hook. If the Altmans ever moved to a different town, they would take Cap with them. My sister would never see him again. It wouldn't matter what he would or wouldn't do for her. My sister waited a moment for me to speak, and when I didn't, she burst into tears, her shoulders heaving, her mouth wrenching open. Jerry and I glanced at each other, startled by the sudden burst of emotion. You can both go to hell," Nona hiccuped, and turned for the house. "Right straight to hell.

Hear my voice and the voice of my ancestors, Chief Seattle said. The destiny of your people is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men? When the view of the ripe hills is blotted by talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone. Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what will happen when we say good-bye to the swift pony and the hunt? It will be the end of living, and the beginning of survival.

I am a person of binges. I have never understood the phrase “too much of a good thing.” Look: it’s irrational, impossible. See fig. 1: when I was a child, I became obsessed with horses. I know, I know, all little girls are obsessed with horses. But I lived for them. I gorged on them. I begged for them in any incarnation: films, toys, patterns, photographs, posters. Once, I cut the hair off a Barbie and superglued it to the base of my spine. I thrilled to wear my pony tail under my clothes, in secret, my parents knowing nothing, thinking me merely human, but it rubbed off after two days, leaving long blond doll hairs clotting in the corners of the house. My birthday came, and my parents, who were still together then, splurged on an afternoon of horseback riding lessons. When it was time to leave, they found that I had knotted my hair into the horse’s mane so elaborately that they had to cut me away from it with a pair of rusted barn shears. I still have the clump of matted girl-and-horse hair hidden in a drawer, though after all the times I put it in my mouth, I admit that it is somewhat the worse for wear.

Hot, bright heat filled him like some ecstatic poison, and Hartan's pony shied in terror as a wordless howl burst from his throat. His dripping ears were flat to his skull, fire crackled in his brown eyes, his huge sword blurred in a whirring figure eight before him, and the brigand running at him gawked in sudden panic. The raider's feet skidded in mud as he tried to brake, but it was far too late. He was face-to-face with the worst nightmare of any Norfressan, a Horse Stealer hradani in the grip of the Rage, and a thunderbolt of steel split him from crown to navel.

At the our he'd always choose when the shadows were long and the ancient road was shaped before him in the rose and canted light like a dream of the past where the painted ponies and the riders of that lost nation came down out of the north with their faces chalked and their long hair plaited and each armed for war which was their life and the women and children and women with children at their breasts all of them pledged in blood and redeemable in blood only...above all the low chant of thei traveling song which the riders sang as they rode, nation and ghost of nation passing in a soft chorale across that mineral waste.

Time for an exercise, which I shall call 'Say It Out Loud With Miranda'. Please take a moment to sit back, breathe and intone: 'I am taking myself seriously as a woman.' Note your response. If you're reading this on the bus, or surreptitiously in the cinema, or in any other public scenario, then please note other people's responses. (If you are male, and teenaged, and reading this in a room with other teenage boys, then for your own safety I advise you not to participate.) The rest of you – what comes to mind when you say those words? Is it a fine lady scientist, a ballsy young anarchist with tights on her head or a feminist intellectual from the 1970s nose-down in Simone de Beauvoir? Or is it what I think my friend meant when she said 'woman' which is really 'aesthetic object'. Clothes-horse. Show pony. General beautiful piece of well-groomed stuff that's lovely to look at? I reckon, to my great dismay, that she did indeed mean the latter. And in saying that I don't take myself seriously in this regard her assessment of me is absolutely bang-on. If taking oneself seriously as a woman means committing to a like of grooming, pumicing, pruning and polishing one's exterior for the benefit of onlookers, then I may as well heave my unwieldy rucksack to the top of a bleak Scottish hill and make my home there under a stone, where I'll fashion shoes out of mud and clothes out of leaves.

They saw the governor himself erect and formal within his silkmullioned sulky clatter forth from the double doors of the palace courtyard and they saw one day a pack of viciouslooking humans mounted on unshod indian ponies riding half drunk through the streets, bearded, barbarous, clad in the skins of animals stitched up with thews and armed with weapons of every description, revolvers of enormous weight and bowieknives the size of claymores and short twobarreled rifles with bores you could stick your thumbs in and the trappings of their horses fashioned out of human skin and their bridles woven up from human hair and decorated with human teeth and the riders wearing scapulars or necklaces of dried and blackened human ears and the horses rawlooking and wild in the eye and their teeth bared like feral dogs and riding also in the company a number of half-naked savages reeling in the saddle, dangerous, filthy, brutal, the whole like a visitation from some heathen land where they and others like them fed on human flesh.

The air grew colder and thinner as they rode through the mountain passes.  The sun was high and bright, but Martise wrapped her shawl tightly around her and pressed against Silhara’s back.  Gnat kept a steady pace, breathing harder in the thin air.  Unlike him, the mountain ponies suffered no effects from the rising elevation and clipped ahead at a swift pace.  Patches of snow spilled from embankments onto the rutted paths.  A brisk wind moaned a soft dirge as it whipped through the towering evergreens cloaking the mountainside. Silhara called a sudden halt.  Martise peered around his arm, expecting to see some obstacle in their path.  The way was clear, with only the Kurmans watching them curiously. “What’s wrong?” “You’re quaking hard enough to make my teeth rattle.”  He moved his leg back and untied one of the packs strapped to the saddle.  “Get down.” She slid off Gnat’s back.  Silhara followed and pulled one of their blankets from the packet.  “Here.  Wrap this around you.” She had only pulled the blanket over her shoulders when he picked her up and tossed her onto Gnat’s back once more, this time in the front of the flat saddle.  She clutched the horse’s mane with one hand and held on to her blanket with the other.  Silhara vaulted up behind her, scooted her back against him and took up the reins. “Better,” he said and whistled to the waiting Kurmans he was ready. Martise couldn’t agree more.  The blanket’s warmth and Silhara’s body heat soaked through her clothing and into her bones.  She leaned into his chest.  “This is nice.” An amused rumble vibrated near her ear.  “So glad you approve.”  His hand slipped under the blanket, wandered over her belly and cupped her breast.  Martise sucked in a breath as his fingers teased her nipple through her shawl and tunic.  The heat surrounding her turned scorching.  “I agree,” he murmured in her ear.  “This is nice.” He stopped his teasing when she squirmed hard enough in the saddle to nearly unseat them both, but left his hand on her breast, content to just hold her.  Martise was ready to toss off the blanket and her shawl.  Silhara’s touch had left her with a throbbing ache between her thighs.  She smiled a little at the feel of him hard against her back.  She wasn’t the only one affected by his teasing.

there was this family who had two boys who were twins, and the only thing they had in common was their looks. If one felt it was too hot, the other felt it was too cold. If one said he liked the cake, the other said he hated it. They were opposites in every way. One was an eternal optimist, and the other a doom and gloom pessimist. Just to see what would happen, on the twins’ birthday, the father loaded the pessimist brother’s room with every imaginable gift – toys and games, and for the boy who always sees the brighter side of life, with horse manure. That night, the father went to check on the doom guy’s room and found him sitting amidst his new gifts sobbing away bitterly. “Why,” the father said in anguish, “after all this?” The boy replied, “Because my friends are going to be jealous, I will have to read all these instructions before I can do anything with this stuff, I will constantly need batteries, and my toys will eventually be stolen or broken.” Passing by the optimist twin’s room, the father found him dancing for joy on the pile of manure. “What are you so happy about?” the father asked. The boy replied, “There’s got to be a pony in here somewhere!

... when the shadows were long and the ancient road was shaped before him in the rose and canted light like a dream of the past where the painted ponies and the riders of that lost nation came down out of the north with their faces chalked and their long hair plaited and each armed for war which was their life and the women and children and women with children at their breasts all of them pledged in blood and redeemable in blood only. When the wind was in the north you could hear them, the horses and the breath of the horses and the horses' hooves that were shod in rawhide and the rattle of lances and the constant drag of the travois poles in the sand like the passing of some enormous serpent and the young boys naked on wild horses jaunty as circus riders and hazing wild horses before them and the dogs trotting with their tongues aloll and footslaves following half naked and sorely burdened and above all the low chant of their traveling song which the riders sang as they rode, nation and ghost of nation passing in a soft chorale across that mineral waste to darkness bearing lost to all history and all remembrance like a grail the sum of their secular and transitory and violent lives.

Now driving in a wild frieze of headlong horses with eyes walled and teeth cropped and naked riders with clusters of arrows clenched in their jaws and their shields winking in the dust and up the far side of the ruined ranks in a piping of boneflutes and dropping down off the sides of their mounts with one heel hung in the withers strap and their short bows flexing beneath the outstretched necks of the ponies until they had circled the company and cut their ranks in two and then rising up again like funhouse figures, some with nightmare faces painted on their breasts, riding down the unhorsed Saxons and spearing and clubbing them and leaping from their mounts with knives and running about on the ground with a peculiar bandylegged trot like creatures driven to alien forms of locomotion and stripping the clothes from the dead and seizing them up by the hair and passing their blades about the skulls of the living and the dead alike and snatching aloft the bloody wigs and hacking and chopping at the naked bodies, ripping off limbs, heads, gutting the strange white torsos and holding up great handfuls of viscera, genitals, some of the savages so slathered up with gore they might have rolled in it like dogs and some who fell upon the dying and sodomized them with loud cries to their fellows.

When the result of the lawsuit was made known (and rumour flew much quicker than the telegraph which has supplanted it), the whole town was filled with rejoicings. [Horses were put into carriages for the sole purpose of being taken out. Empty barouches and landaus were trundled up and down the High Street incessantly. Addresses were read from the Bull. Replies were made from the Stag. The town was illuminated. Gold caskets were securely sealed in glass cases. Coins were well and duly laid under stones. Hospitals were founded. Rat and Sparrow clubs were inaugurated. Turkish women by the dozen were burnt in effigy in the market place, together with scores of peasant boys with the label ‘I am a base Pretender’, lolling from their mouths. The Queen’s cream-coloured ponies were soon seen trotting up the avenue with a command to Orlando to dine and sleep at the Castle, that very same night. Her table, as on a previous occasion, was snowed under with invitations from the Countess of R., Lady Q., Lady Palmerston, the Marchioness of P., Mrs. W.E. Gladstone, and others, beseeching the pleasure of her company, reminding her of ancient alliances between their family and her own, etc.] — all of which is properly enclosed in square brackets, as above, for the good reason that a parenthesis it was without any importance in Orlando’s life. She skipped it, to get on with the text

When the result of the lawsuit was made known (and rumour flew much quicker than the telegraph which has supplanted it), the whole town was filled with rejoicings. [Horses were put into carriages for the sole purpose of being taken out. Empty barouches and landaus were trundled up and down the High Street incessantly. Addresses were read from the Bull. Replies were made from the Stag. The town was illuminated. Gold caskets were securely sealed in glass cases. Coins were well and duly laid under stones. Hospitals were founded. Rat and Sparrow clubs were inaugurated. Turkish women by the dozen were burnt in effigy in the market place, together with scores of peasant boys with the label ‘I am a base Pretender’, lolling from their mouths. The Queen’s cream-coloured ponies were soon seen trotting up the avenue with a command to Orlando to dine and sleep at the Castle, that very same night. Her table, as on a previous occasion, was snowed under with invitations from the Countess of R., Lady Q., Lady Palmerston, the Marchioness of P., Mrs. W.E. Gladstone, and others, beseeching the pleasure of her company, reminding her of ancient alliances between their family and her own, etc.] — all of which is properly enclosed in square brackets, as above, for the good reason that a parenthesis it was without any importance in Orlando’s life. She skipped it, to get on with the text.

When the result of the lawsuit was made known (and rumour flew much quicker than the telegraph which has supplanted it), the whole town was filled with rejoicings. [Horses were put into carriages for the sole purpose of being taken out. Empty barouches and landaus were trundled up and down the High Street incessantly. Addresses were read from the Bull. Replies were made from the Stag. The town was illuminated. Gold caskets were securely sealed in glass cases. Coins were well and duly laid under stones. Hospitals were founded. Rat and Sparrow clubs were inaugurated. Turkish women by the dozen were burnt in effigy in the market place, together with scores of peasant boys with the label ‘I am a base Pretender’, lolling from their mouths. The Queen’s cream-coloured ponies were soon seen trotting up the avenue with a command to Orlando to dine and sleep at the Castle, that very same night. Her table, as on a previous occasion, was snowed under with invitations from the Countess of R., Lady Q., Lady Palmerston, the Marchioness of P., Mrs. W.E. Gladstone, and others, beseeching the pleasure of her company, reminding her of ancient alliances between their family and her own, etc.] — all of which is properly enclosed in square brackets, as above, for the good reason that a parenthesis it was without any importance in Orlando’s life. She skipped it, to get on with the text.

He ambled towards the abyss again, Acquiescing to the adroit turns of his Abtenauer, his Altai horse, his Appaloosa, His Ardennais, and his Australian Brumby….. Agilely each equine adumbrates the aesthetics Of aestivating, much like aficionados of nature And much like ailurophiles, too…… Ambrosial aromas attract his attention to the Assemblage of amaranth foliage growing At the abyss’s edge. “Anglophile!” “Antediluvian!” “Aplomb!” “Apocryphal!” “Apophenia!” “Apothecary!” Each petal calls out to him as he captures their vision in his Aqueous humor. Now an arabesque they display, Then some archipelago formation, as they (those purple perennials) Give in to the Wind’s whimsy. “What’s in my arsenal?” He asks himself. “Do I have Authenticity, like Astrophysics and Astronomy?” “Am I at last in my Autumn, torn asunder by Avarice? Shall I now step toward Winter to wither and waste away, without rebirth?” The Summer’s azure skies call him back, reminding him of his herd. Homeward he must turn. The pony pushes him back to the plain. And, as he trudges away from the abyss, the warriors of darkness— His old battle buddies who left him behind as they raced toward Providence— Rattle in his mind with their Paleolithic war toys, on the war path, chanting: “The greatest battles we face are in the silent chambers of our own souls…..” -----from the poem 'Summer Battle' in the book HOT STUFF: CELEBRATING SUMMER'S SIMMER AND SIZZLE, by Mariecor Ruediger

The summer of 1999, we went on holiday to Spain to visit my cousin Penny, who runs a horse farm in Andalucia. It is a beautiful, wild part of the country. Shara would ride out early each day in the hilly pine forests and along the miles of huge, deserted Atlantic beaches. I was told I was too tall for the small Andalucian ponies. But I didn’t want to be deterred. Instead I ran alongside Shara and tried to keep up with the horse. (Good training, that one.) Eventually, on the Monday morning we were to leave, I took her down to the beach and persuaded her to come skinny-dipping with me. She agreed. (With some more eye-rolling.) As we started to get out after swimming for some time, I pulled her toward me, held her in my arms, and prepared to ask for her hand in marriage. I took a deep breath, steadied myself, and as I was about to open my mouth, a huge Atlantic roller pounded in, picked us both up, and rolled us like rag dolls along the beach. Laughing, I went for take two. She still had no idea what was coming. Finally, I got the words out. She didn’t believe me. She made me kneel on the sand (naked) and ask her again. She laughed--then burst into tears and said yes. (Ironically, on our return, Brian, Shara’s father, also burst into tears when I asked him for his blessing. For that one, though, I was dressed in a jacket, tie, and…board shorts.) I was unsure whether his were tears of joy or despair. What really mattered was that Shara and I were going to get married.

My shrink suggested that if I was going to continue traveling so much that I could look into getting a service animal expressly trained to provide emotional support to people with anxiety disorders. I considered getting Hunter S. Thomcat trained, but then I remembered that he gets spontaneous nervous diarrhea every time he's in a moving car, and I'd imagine that holding a cat who seems to have explosive plane dysentery wouldn't necessarily *help* my anxiety as give me something new (and horribly unsanitary) to be anxious about. I called around to different service-animal specialists and spoke to a woman who told me it's better to get an animal who has already been trained and has the right temperament. She also told me cats aren’t preferred emotional-support animals for anxiety disorder, but my cats hate dogs so I figured I was fucked, but then she told me that the Americans with Disabilities Act was recently interpreted as allowing “people with anxiety disorders to travel with an emotional-support pony on airlines.” So basically I could bring a goddamn pony on board with me. I’m pretty sure a pony wouldn’t fit under my seat or in my lap, but I rather liked the idea of a small medicinal horse standing in the aisle beside me while I braided his mane. Plus, Pony Danza would make a great pack animal and instead of bringing suitcases I could just put my extra clothes on him and that way I wouldn’t have to pay to check a bag. Plus, the pony wouldn’t get cold because it would be wearing my pajamas.

Help,’ Jo moaned. ‘I think I’m in a coma.’ It was seven o’clock. The library walls were scrubbed clean and Allie’s neck and shoulders ached whenever she even thought about raising her arms as she sat on the dust sheet next to Jo. ‘Do your arms hurt?’ Allie asked, rubbing her shoulders. ‘God yes.’ ‘Then you’re not in a coma.’ Gingerly Allie stretched out her legs. ‘Jesus. What have I got myself into? Rachel has a swimming pool and horses. Horses, Jo. I could be floating in a pool and petting soft pony noses if I were still at her house.’ ‘Here.’ Jo turned to face her. ‘My nose is soft. You can pet it.’ Allie stroked her nose tiredly. ‘Wow. This is just like being at Rachel’s. Where’s the pool?’ ‘No pool,’ Jo said. ‘Showers.’ ‘Sucks.’ ‘Totally.’ ‘Are you two just going to lie there complaining? Or are you coming to dinner?’ Allie looked up to see Carter standing above them, studying them doubtfully. ‘Jo’s in a coma,’ Allie informed him. ‘She no longer needs food.’ ‘Wait. Did you say food? I think I’m actually awake.’ Jo scrambled to her feet. ‘My God,’ Allie said mildly. ‘It’s a miracle.’ ‘You’ve only been doing this one day, Sheridan.’ Carter reached down to pull her up. ‘You can’t be tired already.’ ‘Everything hurts,’ she said. ‘Shoulders, arms, back …’ ‘Legs, feet, head …’ Jo offered helpfully. ‘Ankles. Shins. Name a body part,’ Allie said. ‘It hurts.’ Carter didn’t look impressed. ‘Food will ease your pain.’ He steered them towards the dining hall. ‘He’s very wise,’ Allie told Jo. ‘Clearly,’ Jo replied.

The company was now come to a halt and the first shots were fired and the grey riflesmoke rolled through the dust as the lancers breached their ranks. The kid's horse sank beneath him with a long pneumatic sigh. He had already fired his rifle and now he sat on the ground and fumbled with his shotpouch. A man near him sat with an arrow hanging out of his neck. He was bent slightly as if in prayer. The kid would have reached for the bloody hoop-iron point but then he saw that the man wore another arrow in his breast to the fletching and he was dead. Everywhere there were horses down and men scrambling and he saw a man who sat charging his rifle while blood ran from his ears and he saw men and he saw men with their revolvers disassembled trying to fit the fit the spare loaded cylinders they carried and he saw men kneeling who tilted and clasped their shadows on the ground and he saw men lanced and caught up by the hair and scalped standing and he saw the horses of war trample down the fallen and a little whitefaced pony with one clouded eye leaned out of the murk and snapped at him like a dog and was gone. Among the wounded some seemed dumb and without understanding and some were pale through the masks of dust and some had fouled themselves or tottered brokenly onto the spears of the savages. Now driving in a wild frieze of headlong horses with eyes walled and teeth cropped and naked riders with clusters of arrows clenched in their jaws and their shields winking in the dust and up the far side of the ruined ranks in a pipping of boneflutes and dropping down off the side of their mounts with one heel hung in the the withers strap and their short bows flexing beneath the outstretched necks of the ponies until they had circled the company and cut their ranks in two and then rising up again like funhouse figures, some with nightmare faces painted on their breasts, ridding down the unhorsed Saxons and spearing and clubbing them and leaping from their mounts with knives and running about on the ground with a peculiar bandylegged like creatures driven to alien forms of locomotion and stripping the clothes from the dead and seizing them up by the hair and passing their blades about the skulls of the living and the dead alike and snatching aloft the bloody wigs and hacking and chopping at the naked bodies, ripping off limbs, heads, gutting the strange white torsos and holding up great handfuls of viscera, genitals, some of the savages so slathered up with gore they might have rolled in it like dogs and some who fell upon the dying and sodomized them with loud cries to their fellows. And now the horses of the dead came pounding out of the smoke and dust and circled with flapping leather and wild manes and eyes whited with fear like the eyes of the blind and some were feathered with arrows and some lanced through and stumbling and vomiting blood as they wheeled across the killing ground and clattered from sight again. Dust stanched the wet and naked heads of the scalped who with the fringe of hair beneath their wounds and tonsured to the bone now lay like maimed and naked monks in the bloodsoaked dust and everywhere the dying groaned and gibbered and horses lay screaming

Jd_O wti d-d- God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. -GENESIS 1:31 As we look at life, are we bound to the idea that bad things happen to people? Look at all the bad news on television and radio. The newspapers are full of disasters: people dying of illness, accidents, drownings, fires destroying property, uprisings in countries abroad, and on and on. Do you sometimes ask God, "Why me?" As we look around, we get the idea that everything is falling apart, and our whole world is in a spiral downward. Charles L. Allen expressed this idea about our perspective: Our glasses aren't half-empty; they are really half-full. He says, It seems to be a general belief that the will of God is to make things distasteful for us, like taking medicine when we are sick or going to the dentist. Somebody needs to tell us that sunrise is also God's will. In fact, the good things in life far outweigh the bad. There are more sunrises than cyclones. His glass was certainly half-full. There's a story of a young boy who was on top of a pile of horse manure digging as fast and as hard as he could. His father, seeing his son work so hard on a pile of smelly waste, asked, "Weston, what are you doing on that pile of horse manure?" Weston replied, "Daddy, with this much horse manure there must be a pony here somewhere." This son certainly had his glass half-full. You, too, can choose to be positive in all events of life. There is goodness in everything-if we will only look for it. PRAYER Father God, thank You for helping me be a positive person. I appreciate You giving me

In the evening he saddled his horse and rode out west from the house. The wind was much abated and it was very cold and the sun sat blood red and elliptic under the reefs of bloodred cloud before him. He rode where he would always choose to ride, out where the western fork of the old Comanche road coming down out of the Kiowa country to the north passed through the westernmost section of the ranch and you could see the faint trace of it bearing south over the low prairie that lay between the north and middle forks of the Concho River. At the hour he'd always choose when the shadows were long and the ancient road was shaped before him in the rose and canted light like a dream of the past where the painted ponies and the riders of that lost nation came down out of the north with their faces chalked and their long hair plaited and each armed for war which was their life and the women and children and women with children at their breasts all of them pledged in blood and redeemable in blood only. When the wind was in the north you could hear them, the horses and the breath of the horses and the horses' hooves that were shod in rawhide and the rattle of lances and the constant drag of the travois poles in the sand like the passing of some enormous serpent and the young boys naked on wild horses jaunty as circus riders and hazing wild horses before them and the dogs trotting with their tongues aloll and footslaves following half naked and sorely burdened an above all the low chant of their traveling song which the riders sang as they rode, nation and ghost of nation passing in a soft chorale across that mineral waste to darkness bearing lost to all history and all remembrance like a grail the sum of their secular and transitory and violent lives.

The first time Christina and Lachlan Meet ...Christina wasn't about to stop fighting—not until she took her last breath. Boring down with her heels, she thrashed. "Get off me, ye brute." She would hold her son in her arms this day if it was the last thing she did. And by the shift of the crushing weight on her chest, she only had moments before her life's breath completely whooshed from her lungs. The very thought of dying whilst her son was still held captive infused her with strength. With a jab, she slammed the heel of her hand across the man's chin. He flew from her body like a sack of grain. Praises be, had the Lord granted her with superhuman strength? Blinking, Christina sat up. No, no. Her strike hadn't rescued her from the pillager. A champion had. A behemoth of a man pummeled the pikeman's face with his fists. "Never. Ever." His fists moved so fast they blurred. "Harm. A. Woman!" Bloodied and battered, the varlet dropped to the dirt. A swordsman attacked her savior from behind. "Watch out," she cried, but before the words left her lips the warrior spun to his feet. Flinging his arm backward, he grabbed his assailant's wrist, stopped the sword midair and flipped the cur onto his back. Onward, he fought a rush of English attackers with his bare hands, without armor. Not even William Wallace himself had been so talented. This warrior moved like a cat, anticipating his opponent's moves before they happened. Five enemy soldiers lay on their backs. "Quickly," the man shouted, running toward her, his feet bare. No sooner had she rolled to her knees than his powerful arms clamped around her. The wind whipped beneath her feet. He planted her bum in the saddle. "Behind!" Christina screamed, every muscle in her body clenching taut. Throwing back an elbow, the man smacked an enemy soldier in the face resulting in a sickening crack. She picked up her reins and dug in her heels. "Whoa!" The big man latched onto the skirt of her saddle and hopped behind her, making her pony's rear end dip. But the frightened galloway didn't need coaxing. He galloped away from the fight like a deer running from a fox. Christina peered around her shoulder at the mass of fighting men behind them. "My son!" "Do you see him?" the man asked in the strangest accent she'd ever heard. She tried to turn back, but the man's steely chest stopped her. "They took him." "Who?" "The English, of course." The more they talked, the further from the border the galloway took them. "Huh?" the man mumbled behind her like he'd been struck in the head by a hammer. Everyone for miles knew the Scots and the English were to exchange a prisoner that day. The champion's big palm slipped around her waist and held on—it didn't hurt like he was digging in his fingers, but he pressed firm against her. The sensation of such a powerful hand on her body was unnerving. It had been eons since any man had touched her, at least gently. The truth? Aside from the brutish attack moments ago, Christina's life had been nothing but chaste. White foam leached from the pony's neck and he took in thunderous snorts. He wouldn't be able to keep this pace much longer. Christina steered him through a copse of trees and up the crag where just that morning she'd stood with King Robert and Sir Boyd before they'd led the Scottish battalion into the valley. There, she could gain a good vantage point and try to determine where the backstabbing English were heading with Andrew this time. At the crest of the outcropping, she pulled the horse to a halt. "The pony cannot keep going at this pace." The man's eyebrows slanted inward and he gave her a quizzical stare. Good Lord, his tempest-blue eyes pierced straight through her soul. "Are you speaking English?

munching

The sun was rising over the crystal, clear water which was just like a sheet of glass!

When he first saw Tara, he commented on what a beautiful horse she is!

It was really scary today! My friend Ella came over with her brother Tim just as I was getting ready to go for a ride. Anyway, Mom said they could come to the paddock with us to have a little ride themselves. They were so excited as neither of them had ever been on a horse before.

We had to look down every driveway and Mom was getting really stressed.

As a matter of fact he came out on the right side in the end. It turned out later that only one horse had been actually stolen. The others had been driven of, or had bolted in terror, and were found wandering in different corners of the Bree-land. Merry's ponies had escaped altogether, and eventually (having a good deal of sense) they made their way to the Downs in search of Fatty Lumpkin. So they came under the care of Tom Bombadil for a while, and were well-off. But when news of the events at Bree came to Tom's ears, he sent them to Mr. Butterbur, who thus got five good beasts at a very fair price. They had to work harder in Bree, but Bob treated them well; so on the whole they were lucky: they missed a dark and dangerous journey. but they never came to Rivendell.

During the first night of flight, twelve infants and several old people froze to death. The next night, the men killed some of the ponies, disemboweled them, and thrust small children inside to keep them from freezing. The old people put their hands and feet in beside the children. For three days they tramped across the frozen snow, their bare feet leaving a trail of blood, and then they reached Crazy Horse’s camp.

Excellent.

If she knew I went out again,' he said, 'I could get youth custody.' 'If she shopped you, you mean?' He nodded. 'But... sod it... to cut a foot off a horse...' Perhaps the better nature was somewhere there after all. Stealing cars was OK, maiming racehorses wasn't. He wouldn't have blinded those ponies: he wasn't that sort of lout. 'If I fix it with your aunt, will you tell me?' I asked. 'Make her promise not to tell Archie. He's worse.' 'Er,' I said, 'who is Archie?' 'My uncle. Aunt Betty's brother. He's Establishment, man. He's the flogging classes.' I made no promises. I said, 'Just spill the beans.' 'In three weeks I'll be sixteen.' He looked at me intently for reaction, but all he'd caused in me was puzzlement. I thought the cut-off age for crime to be considered 'juvenile' was two years older. He wouldn't be sent to an adult jail. Jonathan saw my lack of understanding. He said impatiently, 'You can't be underage for sex if you're a man, only if you're a girl.' 'Are you sure?' 'She says so.' 'Your Aunt Betty?' I felt lost. 'No, stupid. The woman in the village.' 'Oh... ah.' 'Her old man's a long-distance truck driver. He's away for nights on end. He'd kill me. Youth custody would be apple pie,' 'Difficult,' I said. 'She wants it, see? I'd never done it before. I bought her a gin in the pub.' Which, at fifteen, was definitely illegal to start with. 'So... um...,' I said, 'last night you were coming back from the village... When, exactly?' 'It was dark. Just before dawn. There had been more moon light earlier, but I'd left it late. I was running. She-Aunt Betty-she wakes with the cocks. She lets the dogs out before six.' His agitation, I thought, was producing what sounded like truth. I thought, and asked, 'Did you see any ramblers?' 'No. It was earlier than them.' I held my breath. I had to ask the next question, and dreaded the answer.

pony’s dapples had faded over the years from the dark steel of a young colt to a soft dove grey. Mystic’s back was slightly swayed too, from years of riding. Still, he was a beautiful pony, only fourteen hands high but he held himself so proudly he seemed bigger. His eyes were dark smudges of coal in his pale face, and they had the calm depth of a horse that has lived a little.

pony swished his tail and lifted his head, shaking off a few beads of early morning dew.  He snorted, and clouds of steam erupted from his nostrils as if he

restraining him with a pair of long black leather reins which he held in his white gloved hands. The music changed now from the brisk clacking of Spanish castanets to the dramatic strains of a classical orchestra. The horses

On top of everything else, the locals’ idea of nightlife in the Last Pony was folk songs sung along to an out-of-tune piano, drinking enough ale to knock out a horse, and lighting their own farts. Two centuries ago he would have enjoyed that, joining in heartily as the games became more childish; but as he’d slowly discovered, despite rejuvenation, age was a truly cumulative thing, bringing a degree of wisdom to life.

Kate smirked. “What?” “Your horse looks pink.” “So?” “If you paste some stars on her butt, you’ll be riding My Little Pony.” “Bugger off.” I patted the mare’s neck. “Don’t listen to her, Sugar. You are the cutest horsey ever. The correct name for her color is strawberry roan, by the way.” “Strawberry shortcake, more like it. Does Strawberry Shortcake know you stole her horse? She will be berry, berry angry with you.

Often all riders had to eat were beans, bacon, corn bread, and coffee.

jodhpurs

But even before Hez the shine had gone off the showing world for me. Your pony's way of going often wasn't taken into consideration, and with the irregularities in the judging I was starting to wonder why I bothered: you'd travel round the country and ride well only to lose out to people who really didn't deserve to win.

Branden, we've talked about this, this is the best thing for our family," Dad was saying.

I counted the numbers on the letterboxes as Squib spooked and bounded along the road, unable as usual to walk like a normal pony. Why behave sensibly when you can impersonate a carousel horse? had always been his motto.

He sighs. “My brother requests your presence. I’m simply the pony brought here to carry you back.” I laugh. “I find it hard to believe you’d ever allow yourself to be ridden like a horse.

horses. It took them three more days to come

This Blue Coat’s woman?” he demanded, gesturing toward Lily. Caleb shook his head. “She’s her own woman. Just ask her.” Lily’s heart was jammed into her throat. She had an urge to go for the rifle again, but this time it was Caleb she wanted to shoot. “He lies,” she said quickly, trying to make sign language. “I am too his woman!” The Indian looked back at his followers, and they all laughed. Lily thought she saw a hint of a grin curve Caleb’s lips as well but decided she must have imagined it. “You trade woman for two horses?” Caleb lifted one hand to his chin, considering. “Maybe. I’ve got to be honest with you. She’s a lot of trouble, this woman.” Lily’s terror was exceeded only by her wrath. “Caleb!” The Indian squinted at Lily and then made an abrupt, peevish gesture with the fingers of one hand. “He wants you to get down from the buggy so he can have a good look at you,” Caleb said quietly. “I don’t care what he wants,” Lily replied, folding her trembling hands in her lap and squaring her shoulders. The Indian shouted something. “He’s losing his patience,” Caleb warned, quite unnecessarily. Lily scrambled down from the buggy and stood a few feet from it while the Indian rode around her several times on his pony, making thoughtful grunting noises. Annoyance was beginning to overrule Lily’s better judgment. “This is my land,” she blurted out all of a sudden, “and I’m inviting you and your friends to get off it! Right now!” The Indian reined in his pony, staring at Lily in amazement. “You heard me!” she said, advancing on him, her hands poised on her hips. At that, Caleb came up behind her, and his arms closed around her like the sides of a giant manacle. His breath rushed past her ear. “Shut up!” Lily subsided, watching rage gather in the Indians’ faces like clouds in a stormy sky. “Caleb,” she said, “you’ve got to save me.” “Save you? If they raise their offer to three horses, you’ll be braiding your hair and wearing buckskin by nightfall.” The Indians were consulting with one another, casting occasional measuring glances in Lily’s direction. She was feeling desperate again. “All right, then, but remember, if I go, your child goes with me.” “You said you were bleeding.” Lily’s face colored. “You needn’t be so explicit. And I lied.” “Two horses,” Caleb bid in a cheerful, ringing voice. The Indians looked interested. “I’ll marry you!” Lily added breathlessly. “Promise?” “I promise.” “When?” “At Christmas.” “Not good enough.” “Next month, then.” “Today.” Lily assessed the Indians again, imagined herself carrying firewood for miles, doing wash in a stream, battling fleas in a tepee, being dragged to a pallet by a brave. “Today,” Lily conceded. The man in the best calico shirt rode forward again. “No trade,” he said angrily. “Blue Coat right—woman much trouble!” Caleb laughed. “Much, much trouble,” he agreed. “This Indian land,” the savage further insisted. With that, he gave a blood-curdling shriek, and he and his friends bolted off toward the hillside again. Lily turned to face Caleb. “I lied,” she said bluntly. “I have no intention of marrying you.” He brought his nose within an inch of hers. “You’re going back on your word?” “Yes,” Lily answered, turning away to climb back into the buggy. “I was trying to save myself. I would have said anything.” Caleb caught her by the arm and wrenched her around to face him. “And there’s no baby?” Lily lowered her eyes. “There’s no baby.” “I should have taken the two horses when they were offered to me,” Caleb grumbled, practically hurling her into the buggy. Lily

Pony Cakes 1 cup rolled oats 1 cup flour 1 tsp salt 2 tsp sugar 2 tsp corn oil ¼ cup molasses 1 cup shredded carrots 1 cup diced apple   1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C).* 2. Mix the oats, flour, salt, sugar, oil, and molasses in a bowl. 3. Stir in the carrots and apple. 4. Lightly flour your hands to keep the batter from sticking to them. Then form balls of batter no bigger than a golf ball. 5. Grease a cookie sheet (rub it with butter or margarine or spritz it with a spray-on cooking oil). 6. Place the balls of batter on the cookie sheet. 7. Bake for about 12 minutes or until the cookies turn gold. 8. Let cool. 9. Serve to your favorite horse.   *

There’s something else, too, Miss Emmie.” Stevens had gone bashful now, and Emmie was intrigued. “Here.” Stevens beckoned her to follow him out the back of the stables, to where a separate entrance led to a roomy foaling stall. “He said you needed summat other’n t’mule, and you’re to limber her up, as Miss Winnie will be getting a pony soon.” A sturdy dapple-gray mare stood regarding Emmie from over a pile of hay. She turned a soft eye on Emmie and came over to the half door to greet her visitors. “Oh, Stevens.” Emmie’s eyes teared up again. “She is so pretty… so pretty.” “He left ye a message.” Stevens disappeared back into the barn and came out with a sealed envelope. “I can tack her up if ye like.” Emmie tore open the envelope with shaking fingers. How dare he be so thoughtful and generous and kind? Oh, how dare he… She couldn’t keep the horse, of course; it would not be in the least proper, but dear Lord, the animal was lovely… My dear Miss Farnum, Her name is Petunia, and she is yours. I have taken myself to points distant, so by the time I return, you will have fallen in love with her, and I will be spared your arguments and remonstrations. She is as trustworthy and reliable a lady as I have met outside your kitchen, and at five years of age, has plenty of service yet to give. Bothwell has been alerted you will be joining him on his rides, should it please you to do so. And if you are still determined not to keep the horse, dear lady, then consider her my attempt at consolation to you for inflicting Scout on the household in my absence. St. Just He’d drawn a sketch in the corner of Scout, huge paws splayed, tongue hanging, his expression bewildered, and broken crockery scattered in every direction. The little cartoon made Emmie smile through her tears even as Winnie tugged Scout out behind the stables to track Emmie down. “Are you crying, Miss Emmie?” Winnie picked up Emmie’s hand. “You mustn’t be sad, as we have Scout now to protect us and keep us company.” “It isn’t Scout, Winnie.” Emmie waved a hand toward the stall where Petunia was still hanging her head over the door, placidly watching the passing scene. “Oh.” Winnie’s eyes went round. “There’s a new horse, Scout.” She picked up her puppy and brought him over to the horse. The mare sniffed at the dog delicately, then at the child, then picked up another mouthful of hay. “Her name’s Petunia,” Emmie said, finding her handkerchief. “The earl brought her from York so I can ride out with the vicar.” “She’s very pretty,” Winnie said, stroking the velvety gray nose. “And not too big.” The mare was fairly good size, at least sixteen and a half hands, and much too big for Winnie. “Maybe once I get used to her, I can take you up with me, Winnie. Would you like that?” “Would I?” Winnie squealed, setting the dog down. “Did you hear that, Scout? Miss Emmie says we can go for a ride. Oh… We must write to the earl and thank him, Miss Emmie, and I must tell Rose I have a puppy, too. I can knight Scout, can’t I?” “Of course you may,” Emmie said, reaching for Winnie’s hand. “Though you must know knights would never deign to be seen in the castle kitchens, except perhaps in the dead of winter, when it’s too cold to go charging about the kingdom.” “Did knights sleep in beds?” “Scout can stay with Stevens above the carriage house when you have repaired to your princess tower for your beauty sleep.” “I’ll ask Scout.” It

Friday 8 August Last night, Mom called one of the parents from pony club. A little while ago, he told her about a man who is not only a very experienced horse trainer but also a horse healer. Apparently he worked wonders with their daughter’s pony, Rocco who was behaving really badly and wasn’t able to be ridden. So Mom decided to get his details so she could ask him about Tara. Now he’s coming over on Sunday afternoon to have a look at her. I’m so glad he can come and I hope he can help!!!

If we cut this now,” St. Just said, taking the pie from Val before Zeke was even halted, “we can destroy all the evidence before the infidels come back from the home farm. Sir Dewey and Darius are making an inspection of the pond and can help us dispose of the evidence. Ale goes with pie. Put up your pony, Valentine, and we’ll save you a little slice.” “I will tattle to Her Grace,” Val said, swinging down. “I traveled six miles in a sweltering heat, paid good coin, and carried that pie back with my own two hands.” “Traveling uphill both ways,” St. Just added solemnly, “with a scalding headwind. Last one to the pond is a virgin with a little pizzle.” “Pizzle,” Val muttered, loosening his horse’s girth. “I forgot pizzle. That makes thirteen.” “You’re daft, Valentine. A man doesn’t forget his pizzle.” St. Just spun on his heel and headed for the trail to the pond. When

Instead of the carriage Beatrix had expected, there was a single horse on the drive, Christopher’s large bay gelding. Beatrix turned to give him a questioning look. “Don’t I get a horse? A pony cart? Or am I to trot along behind you?” His lips twitched. “We’ll ride together. If you’re willing. I have a surprise for you.” “How unconventional of you.” “Yes, I thought that would please you.” He helped her to mount the horse, and swung up easily behind her. No matter what the surprise was, Beatrix thought as she leaned back into his cradling arms, this moment was bliss. She savored the feel of him, all his strength around her, his body adjusting easily to every movement of the horse. He bade her to close her eyes as they went into the forest. Beatrix relaxed against his chest. The forest air turned sweeter as it cooled, infused with scents of resin and dark earth. “Where are we going?” she asked against his coat. “We’re almost there. Don’t look.” Soon Christopher reined in the horse and dismounted, helping her down. Viewing their surroundings, Beatrix smiled in perplexity. It was the secret house on Lord Westcliff’s estate. Light glowed through the open windows. “Why are we here?” “Go upstairs and see,” Christopher said, and went to tether the horse. Picking up the skirts of her blue dress, Beatrix ascended the circular staircase, which had been lit with strategically placed lamps in the wall brackets where ancient torches had once hung. Reaching the circular room upstairs, Beatrix crossed the threshold. The room had been transformed.

Each pony leaving his hoof prints on her heart. I

Now, to steal horses, their raiding parties ranged over the endless grass-lands far toward the south, old warriors say even into the Spanish possessions. Often these raiders were absent for two years; and nearly always they were successful. Their pony-bands grew until men measured their wealth in horses. Meat, their principal food, was easily obtained; and yet these people did not permit life to drag, or become stale. War and horse-stealing were their never-ending games; and besides furnishing necessary excitement and adventure they kept every man in constant training, since a successful raid was certain to bring attempts at reprisal. To be mentioned by his tribesmen as a great warrior, or a cunning horse-thief, was the highest ambition of a plains Indian; and the Blackfeet were master-hands at both these hazardous hobbies.

Julia, it was so much fun!” she exclaimed, the excitement in her voice evident. “They have the nicest property! And their jumping course is amazing!! I watched Charlie jump Milo over some really high jumps. He is such a brilliant jumper. Charlie said that they’re going to go to show jumping classes as well as pony club. Apparently they’re held at the show grounds in town every second week and its perfect because they’re on the alternative week that pony club is held. I talked to my parents and they said they’re happy for me to go!” Julia prattled on excitedly,