with a murderous expression. The skewbald looked so pleased with himself that, despite the heart attack he had just given her, Issie couldn’t help but immediately have a soft spot for him.
“So that’s Comet?”
“The one and only,” Aidan said darkly. “The skewbald that no paddock can hold.”
As Comet came closer, Issie could see that he was actually rather pretty. The pony was a chestnut with white patches, and he had white socks and a broad, white stripe down his nose. Comet was sturdy and muscular, like all wild Gisborne hill ponies. He had solid legs with thick cannon bones, strong shoulders and powerful hindquarters made for jumping–a fact which he was clearly using to his advantage to get out of the paddock whenever he liked. The pony’s conformation was powerful, but it was his eyes that had Issie totally bewitched. Those eyes! They burnt with an intensity that she hadn’t seen before in any horse.
Comet seemed thrilled that everyone was paying him so much attention. As he danced along at Hester’s side, Issie could have sworn he had the attitude of a champion racehorse. In his mind, this pony wasn’t little at all. He was a colossus.
“Comet! Stand still, naughty pony!” Hester growled. Then she turned to Issie and Aidan. “Isadora! Lovely to see you. I take it you’ve already met Comet?”
“You could say that,” Issie smiled.
“Well, my favourite niece, as you can see, this place hasn’t changed a bit–it’s still completely mad!” Hester said. “Welcome back to Blackthorn Farm.”
“You mean we were nearly hit by a comet?” Stella said. She and Kate had emerged from the truck and were totally confused by what had just happened.
“No,” Issie giggled. “We nearly hit him. Comet is a horse!” She gestured towards the skewbald pony who was still skipping about as Aunt Hester tried to hold him with the belt off her dress.
“He escaped on to the driveway and we nearly ran him over,” Aidan explained.
“Are Toby and Coco OK?” Hester asked.
“They’re both fine,” Stella said. “They scrambled a bit when the truck stopped suddenly, but they didn’t fall over or anything.”
“Let’s get them unloaded,” Kate suggested. “We can check them over properly in the loose box once we take off their floating bandages.”
Since the truck had been forced to stop halfway down the driveway it seemed easier to simply unload the horses there and walk them the rest of the way.
Toby and Coco came down the ramp with their ears pricked and their heads held high, as horses do whenever they arrive somewhere new. When he saw them Comet gave a whinny of greeting. His whole body reverberated as his clarion call rang out, shaking with a neigh of excitement at having new horses for company.
Hester glared at him. “Oh, do behave yourself, Comet! You really are the most troublesome pony.” She turned to the girls. “I don’t want you to think they’re all this bad. Most of the Blackthorn Ponies we have here are very well schooled. I’ve got several new horses that are perfect learners’ ponies, ideal for the riding school. Come on, let’s put your horses away and then you can meet some of them.”
The stable block at Blackthorn Farm was built from the same white-painted weatherboards as the manor. Inside it was like a giant barn, with bales of hay stacked up in one corner, a storage room for tack and two rows of loose boxes. On the door of each loose box a horse’s head was carved into the honey-coloured wood above a plaque with the horse’s name inscribed on it.
Issie pushed open the vast wooden sliding door and walked inside, followed by Stella and Kate leading Coco and Toby, and Aunt Hester, still with her makeshift dress-belt halter, hanging on to Comet.
“You can put your horses in the first two boxes on the left there, girls,” Hester said.
“What about Comet?” asked Issie.
“I don’t usually box him,” Hester said. “Blackthorn Ponies don’t really like it in the stable as a rule. They prefer to graze out. But I might have to make an exception in Comet’s case–at least if he’s in a loose box he won’t be able to jump out!”
Hester popped Comet in the box next to Coco’s. The stall was freshly mucked out with clean straw on the floor and water in the trough. Comet gave his new home a rather bored once-over and then craned his neck desperately over the Dutch door, whinnying to get attention. Coco stuck her head out of her stall and returned his call.
“Shhh! Coco!” Stella said, giggling. “He’s a naughty pony. Don’t encourage him!”
As they walked down the rows of loose boxes the girls could see familiar faces poking out of the top of each stall door. First in the row were the three palominos, Paris, Nicole and Stardust, the mares they had ridden when they were working as stunt riders on The Palomino Princess. Issie stopped and fed a carrot to Stardust, running a hand through her silver-white mane, admiring the rich treacle sheen of her coat. “Remember me, girl?” she asked softly.
Her question was answered by a nicker from the stall next door as a black and white face emerged. “Diablo!” Issie grinned at him. Diablo was Aunt Hester’s favourite stunt horse, a piebald Quarter Horse that could do all sorts of tricks, including playing dead when a gun was fired–a trick that had almost scared Issie and her friends out of their wits the last time they were at Blackthorn Farm.
In the stall next to Diablo was the enormous draught horse Dolomite. The big bay with the white blaze stood at nearly sixteen-three hands, while, in the stall right next to him, was Titan, the dinky miniature pony who couldn’t have been more than ten hands high!
“Dolly and Titan obviously aren’t any use as riding-school ponies,” Hester said. “You’d need a ladder to mount Dolly.”
“What about Titan?” Stella asked. “Couldn’t one of the little kids ride on him?”
Hester shook her head. “Titan is a true miniature, a Falabella. They’re not really bred as riding ponies; they can only handle very light weights on their back–although he can tow a cart.”
In the stall next to Titan was a dark brown pony who was around thirteen hands high. “This is Molly, one of my new ones,” Hester said. “She’s a Blackthorn Pony that I’ve been schooling up. Very well mannered–the perfect learner’s pony.”
“How many ponies will you need?” asked Issie.
“That depends on how many students enroll,” Hester said. “The ad has only been up on the PONY Magazine website for a few days and we already have five keen pupils lined up.”
“Do any of them actually know anything about riding?” Kate asked Hester.
“The twins, Tina and Trisha, have experience,” said Hester. “They’re ten years old and they’ve been having weekly lessons since they turned eight apparently. I was planning to put them on Paris and Nicole. They’ll be perfect for more advanced riders. The youngest rider so far is Kitty–she’s eight and mad keen on ponies according to her mum, although her brother George, who is ten, sounds like a handful. Both of them have had riding lessons, so they know the basics.”
“Which ponies will you put Kitty and George on?” asked Issie.
“I’m not sure about George, but I was thinking that Kitty could ride Timmy, the sweet chestnut with the star on his forehead. He’s a Blackthorn Pony too, no vices and thoroughly bombproof,” Hester said. “The oldest girl is eleven. Her name is Kelly-Anne and she insists she’s a bit of an expert–but she seems utterly green to me, if you know what I mean. I’m going to put her on Julian. He’s a bit of a plodder, quite safe for an absolute beginner.”
Issie