If I Could Ride by Caroline Akrill

Author:Caroline Akrill [Akrill, Caroline]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jane Badger Books

9

We could take the legs off

Trying to hire a floor was an absolute nightmare. Every place I tried hadn’t one for hire on the date of the Pony Club Ball. They were already booked. Eventually, I managed to contact a firm who were closing down. They were not able to hire me a floor but they would be willing to sell me one. They also had a fancy striped interior lining which could probably be adapted for the indoor school. The price of this and the floor was three hundred and fifty pounds. I replaced the telephone receiver with a sinking heart. There was no way I could justify such expenditure.

Sarah was sympathetic but she was forced to agree that it was impossible. If we could be sure that the Pony Club would require the same facilities the following year, and if we could be reasonably certain of staging similar functions, then the expenditure could be regarded as an investment. But this depended on the first booking being a success, and we wouldn’t know that until afterwards. We decided that we should have to call the whole thing off. All the same, we didn’t like the idea of letting Harry and co down.

Salvation came unexpectedly, in the form of a stocky little man with a walrus moustache. He walked into the yard, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

‘Looking for potential driving ponies,’ he said, his eyes flicking from stable to stable. ‘Told you might have something just the ticket.’ We all looked blank.

Simon said he wasn’t aware of it.

The stocky man was dismayed. ‘Been misinformed then,’ he said glumly. ‘Somebody’s got their wires crossed.’

We said we were sorry we couldn’t help. The stocky man said he was sorry as well. He couldn’t understand it. The person had even given him details. Greys, they had told him, seven of them.

We gasped.

‘The seven dwarfs!’ Sarah cried.

‘It can’t be,’ Simon said. ‘They are only yearlings. They are tiny.’

The stocky man said that he preferred to buy them young. It was better, he said, to keep them handled, to get to know them. Then, when it was time to break them to harness, they were no trouble. He liked them small. He had a collection of miniature carts. He went in for competition driving. Last year he had been second in the scurry at the Horse of the Year Show. He would have been first but one of his wheels had knocked over a bollard. Pipped at the post he was.

Out in the home paddock, the seven dwarfs clustered round us in new-found confidence. Now that they had their summer coats and were sleek and round, they looked very pretty. The stocky man was delighted with them. He was charmed.

‘Might get three pairs and still have a spare,’ he said. ‘Might even drive a four in hand!’ We tried to imagine it.

‘Can only offer you a hundred apiece, mind,’ he said. ‘Can’t afford any more!’

We tried not to show our astonishment.

‘Give them a first class home,’ he declared.

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