End of the dream and a beginning...

This is how it came about.

On Tuesday, Pat rang me: "I thought you’d like to know that Clyde’s for sale, and if I were you," she said meaningfully, "I’d snap him up."
Clyde is one of the ponies on working livery in the school. He’s quite a character, the only pony at the stable who has to be led in a Chifney bit – one whiff of a headcollar and he’s bolting for the Elysian fields, dragging a farrier or two behind him and five stablegirls trying to tempt him back with a carrot. He is an exciting pony to ride, as he’s fast and jumps huge for his small, stocky size The first time you see Clyde in action is quite an experience. There’s this little brown pony trotting along peacefully… unexceptional… but even as he turns for the jump, before he can even see it, he gathers himself, explodes into an astonishing burst of energy and he flies. That aside, he’s ‘safe’ and ‘sensible’, with none of the head-tossing heel-kicking histrionics of Whisper.

We snapped him up.

He is not the dreamboat horse of shallow-pony-mum’s fantasies, and he won’t turn any heads (tho J unaccountably thinks he is the most beautiful pony that ever pawed the ground). I’ve had to scale down my ambitions re the In-Hand beauty contest at Sudeley Show, but a Clear- Round rosette should be in the bag!

The dream ends here. But pony-owning reality, ah, well, that’s about to start…