Acquired via BookCrossing 28 Aug 2010 – passed to me by Sorcha

I’m reading quite a few pony books at the moment as my Mt TBR is full of hardback non-fiction, both library books and non-library books, and I’m loathe to skip ahead too far into the novels as I’ll only run into the same problem if I read too many of those!

A slightly different angle on the usual pony books, in that Pat Smythe is a showjumper and horse trainer herself, and she bases the book on herself, her stables, her horses and her staff, then invents some children to work the story around.  It does work well, although there are some touches that would never appear in a pony book today, for example when a 12 year old drinks a couple of cocktails to show off at a party and, indeed, the hunting scenes, complete with the fox’s brush being waved around. 

It’s very strongly moral, though – if you’ve been spoilt, you should be taken down a peg at every opportunity; then again it’s refreshing to have a co-heroine, in Jacqueline, who is very dislikeable even to near the end of the story.

There’s a lot of horsey lore in there, too, inserted quite sensibly into the story arc, and it’s a good read. There are apparently more in the series; it’ll be interesting to find those and see if they are as good once Jacky has settled down a bit.