Distant Oxus was published the following year (1937). A sub-Swallows and Amazons
with ponies, this book and its two sequels were the forerunner of the adventure plus
pony stories in which the ponies were incidental.
Arguably the finest writer in the genre, K.M. (Kathleen) Peyton, started writing at the
age of 9 and her first story was published when she was 15. Sabre, The Horse from the
Sea (1948), written under her maiden name Kathleen Herald, was followed by The
Mandrake (1949) and Crab the Roan (1953). Although she went on to greater things,
including a Carnegie Medal, and other kinds of books, she never lost her all-consuming
interest and continues to write pony stories. Even her admired Flambards series (from
1978), though by no stretch of the imagination pony books, is permeated with her love
of horses. Her best pony book, Fly-by-Night, was written in 1968 when the popularity of
the genre was losing its impetus, killed, suggested Marcus Crouch ‘by sheer exhaustion
of possibilities and also, perhaps, by affluence, for children who have a pony hardly need
the vicarious experiences offered by pony stories’ (Crouch 1972:152). If Fly-by-Night
marked the end of the golden age of pony books, it also demonstrated how it was
possible to transform the old formula without flouting the conventions. The plot is
almost identical to A Pony for Jean—but heroine Ruth Hollis’s family is not wealthy and
middle class; they live on a housing estate and they are plagued by money worries. In
this and other books by Kathleen Peyton, like Darkling (1989), the responsibilities as
well as the pleasures of owning horses are stressed, and in Poor Badger (1990), a classic
‘pony rescue’ story, the ethics of taking someone else’s pony, however badly treated, are
seriously discussed.
Another exponent of the more realistic pony stories of the 1960s was Vian Smith; one
of the few male writers of pony stories and probably the only good one, he is as
knowledgeable about human behaviour as he is about animals. Come Down the
Mountain (1967), the story of a girl’s determination to save a neglected racehorse and the
effect it has on her family and the community in which they live, is an exceptional book
by any standards.
The downward trend in pony stories continued in the 1970s, enlivened only by the first
of the twelve Jinny books by Patricia Leitch. Her earlier books had followed in the
tradition of the Pullein-Thompsons, although Janet—Young Rider (1963), with its working-
class family, reflected far more accurately the preoccupations of its period. Dream of Fair
Horses (1975), heavily influenced by National Velvet, is still a remarkable work of
imagination with serious things to say about the dangers of trying to possess living
beings. But Leitch set her own seal on the genre with the series about Jinny and her
Arab horse Shantih (starting with For Love of a Horse in 1976). Still deservedly popular,
these books, set in the Highlands, follow the growth and development of Jinny through a
continuous series of adventures linked together by the mysterious Red Horse, painted
on her bedroom wall, which represents the life force.
In the 1980s and 1990s, there has been a slight resurgence of interest in pony books.
Today there are more horses in Britain—about 750,000—than at the outbreak of the
First World War (Lean 1994:8) and riding is as popular as ever. There is still a demand
for pony books around the world, and they sell particularly well in Germany and
Scandinavia. However there is a shortage of new writers like Caroline Akrill with her
lively trilogy—Eventer’s Dream (1981), A Hoof in the Door (1982), Ticket to Ride (1983)—
TYPES AND GENRES 363