The blog.
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The Anti-Plaits League
Knight carefully removed Jill’s plaits in several editions of Jill’s Riding Club. The alterations are there in the 1970s W D Underwood cover version, and the Red Rosette and White Spine editions. Jill’s Riding Club, in common with all the other titles, lost all illustrations in the Black Horseshoe edition, so that was the end…
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Jumping ponies of long ago
Most of us can probably remember Stroller – the remarkable pony who won Olympic medals with Marion Mould (or Coakes). There’s something particularly special about seeing a pony a good couple of hands smaller than its competitors winning despite the odds. There are other famous jumping ponies, who were around long before Stroller. I have…
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Winning a Pony – Kathleen Mackenzie, Prize Pony
Here’s another in my series on winning a pony via the medium of pony books – because every pony-mad child who doesn’t have a pony dreams of getting one. And if you couldn’t afford to buy one, then winning one in a competition might just make your dream come true. The first competition tied to…
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The observation of horses
a guest post from Janet Rising Car journey boredom is not something from which I suffer, for there are always horses to see! As a young child, even before I swapped a shilling for I-Spy Horses & Ponies, my head would swivel from right to left on any car journey. I was, and still am, an equine-seeking missile.…
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An ambition achieved: the Julip shop
When you were a child, did you have a list of things you thought you’d do once you were a grown up? For me, one of those things was visiting the Julie Loughnan children’s shop in Beauchamp Place in London. Not that I was interested in their children’s clothes, it was what was in their…
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How to win a pony with Dragon Books
Dragon Books was set up by Gordon Landsborough, who had started the immensely successful Armada Books. Dragon Books launched in 1966 with eight titles, including Mary O Hara’s My Friend Flicka, which was split into two separate volumes, with covers I think by Peter Archer.
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Winning a pony with Pat Smythe
I posted recently about the Dragon Books Win a Pony competition, but this wasn’t the first Win-a-Pony competition organised by a publisher (and besides the one I’m going to tell you about, there was also one attached to Kathleen Mackenzie’s Prize Pony, published by Evans in 1959. More on that later). Pat Smythe was an…
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Pony Magazine: the first Christmas
The very first Christmas edition of Pony Magazine was in December 1949. Life was very different to 2025. The war had ended just four years before, and rationing was still in place for many things. The magazine’s gift guides were far from extravagant, and the stress was on the true message of Christmas, albeit seen…
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Black Tail
An exclusive short story by Janet Rising I’m delighted to feature a short story by Janet Rising you won’t find anywhere else: a poignant read of love and loss set on the hunting field. *** Henry eased himself into the saddle, his bones settling, his muscles relaxing into their familiar positions as he nodded to…
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Finding Jinny
by Siân Shipley I remember it like it was yesterday. 1993. Down past the shopping precinct, the cricket pitch, the playing fields and back again. My schoolfriend Becky, sat on her chestnut pony Pepe outside the bakery, holding the reins of big bay Jolly whilst her Mam queued for sausage rolls. The surgery, the play-ground,…