This is a horse story about a little Shetland pony, horse therapy and his relationship with her masters. The story depicts the timeless connection between human beings and their horses.  Share your horse stories with us.

The Little Black Pony | A Shetland Pony Horse Story by Jenni Ahmet

This is an emotional horse story about a little Shetland pony and his exceptional relationship with her masters. The story depicts the timeless connection between human beings and their horses. Hope you will experience the same while reading this story.

I was never going to have children. I made this statement adamantly whenever the inevitable question was asked following marriage. Not only was I devoted to my career as a veterinarian, I also cherished a childhood dream to become a accomplished equestrian rider, and spent many hours in the saddle. My husband’s career involved horses too-Geoff is a very talented farrier, and his future dream was to become a successful racehorse trainer, since he came from a family with historical connections to racing. Horses being the “twentyfour by seven” lifestyle choice that they are, it always seemed like taking time out for having children was just not an option. Geoff and I worked hard and long hours, fully immersed in our complementary professions that saw us combining our expertise on horses belonging to our clients, and
a stable full of horses that belonged to ourselves.

However, nature and the biological clock prevailed, and one summer, soon after my thirty-seventh birthday, I found myself expecting our first child. At first, I kept it a secret and kept working horses. Inside, I was in a turmoil of excitement and fear, sensing that life was going to be changed forever, and not sure whether I really wanted to let go of the lifestyle I already enjoyed. Geoff was over the moon about the prospect of parenthood, which at times I found profoundly contenting, and then at other times infuriating, because he didn’t seem at all daunted, as I was, at the imminent changes to my body and my life.

One day, in about the middle of my pregnancy, Geoff came home with a little black Shetland pony. She had belonged to one of his clients who owned a horse boarding property, and whose children had long since grown up and ceased to ride. Her name was “Cavalier Park Pixie”, and she was well over twenty years old, but extremely healthy and robust for her age. We had never had a pony in our stable before because we had only ever had eyes for racehorses and equestrian horses. However, Geoff’s rationale was that if we were going to have children, they would have to learn to ride, so he thought he would get in early and get the pony first.

Pixie proved to be a fiesty and self assured individual. She was very black, and had large, wise eyes hidden under a bushy forelock that missed very little of the goings on around the stables. In particular, she always had a good grip of the feeding routine, and she wasn’t adverse to squeezing under or through any fences that were slack. Consequently, we had to immediately attend to a great deal of fencing improvements on our property to cater for this situation. I quickly grew to adore Pixie, finding her aakin to having a very large dog following around, but with a wily equine personality that could only be admired. She was very assertive with the other horses in the stable, demonstrating that body mass has little correlation with personal power. And she would always like to try and have an argument with Geoff when he trimmed her feet, so that he would have to tie her rope shorter and not let her pull her feet away, upon which she would eventually, and grudgingly, submit to the procedure.

Our first child, Harrison, was born in the spring. I was overwhelmed by love and joy, and feelings of contentment and fulfillment impossible to imagine before the experience of giving birth. I also managed to keep working around the horses quite capably, and spent most days out and about the stables. Harrison would be snuggled up in his capsule or pram, and spent most of his early life out and about with me, parked up in various stables, or under the trees watching the wind blowing the leaves. As soon as he could sit up, I was putting him on Pixie’s back, and he loved seeing her from his pram too, where he could meet her at face level. Sometimes, I just used to park his pram in front of her box, and she would keep him amused whilst I attended to
other jobs.

About this time, I discovered an interesting phenomenon, which caused me to reflect deeply on the timeless connection between human tribes and their horses. Harrison was about the age of 9 months, when babies are frequently determinedly trying to master walking. He was also getting quite heavy to carry, being a solidly built, healthy little baby boy. I found it quite convenient to place him on Pixie’s back, which was about level with my hips, and have her carry him around rather than me. Harrison, at this age, quickly realized that he could get the sensation of forward movement that he desired, and he was utterly delighted to get on her back and be lead around.
This then was the phenomenon of “learning to ride before learning to walk”.

We took Harrison to his first pony club gymkhana at the age of 2. Our neighbourhood friends had older children that rode, since we live in a lovely semi-rural suburb, where the local pony club is part of the social scene. In a pair of tiny jodhpurs that I had had made, he sat on Pixie with all the confidence and balance of a child at least twice his age as we lead him around the grounds. He went in all the lead rein events, and even won a blue ribbon in the show jumping – where Mum lead Pixie over a series of poles on the ground.

Harrison grew, and riding was part of his life, because he was surrounded by horses on a daily basis. He also frequently spent days out on the horse-shoeing rounds with his Dad, as I was expecting our second child in the winter of the year Harrison turned 2. We were finding parenting such a wonderful experience, and we felt that Harrison needed a sibling, so the
news of this second pregnancy was nothing short of joyous. I felt that since I had managed so capably to blend work with mothering, that it would a breeze to have another child.

However, Harrison’s sister Sophie was born that winter with a rare skull deformity that was putting pressure on her little brain, and had the potential to cause her serious brain damage. It was with a pounding heart and a sinking feeling of panic in my belly that I received the news that our gorgeous little 4 month old daughter would require a major skull reconstruction. Such long and difficult surgery was not without risk. Suddenly, my world of horses and career goals faded into immediate insignificance, and I cradled my little baby to my heart and knew that I would have to do whatever my baby needed me to do.

What followed was the nightmare for any parents who have a child with problems. When you walk through the wards of a children’s hospital, you realize that it is great luck to have a child with no problems – something that perhaps previously is taken for granted. You also realize that the people who work in children’s hospitals are possibly some of the most shining human beings on the planet. Sophie’s surgery was successful, but she sustained a stroke at the end of the operation which left her left arm limp. In the agonizing hours of her coming through recovery in intensive care, I noticed that she could no longer suck her thumb. She always would suck her left thumb. It is difficult to assess the functioning of the nervous system in tiny babies, but the tests that followed did reveal that she had been left with some paralysis and weakness on her left side, despite the surgery on her skull being a success.

We took Sophie home and I gave up everything to devote all my time to looking after her and Harrison. My focus at this time shifted fully into being at home with small children. Sophie needed to see various doctors and physiotherapists, and was making great progress and a great recovery. The surgery was a success, and the physios assured me that if we kept working on
Sophie’s development, she had a good chance of overcoming the weakness in her left side. At this stage she was crawling actively around and was a very alert and adorable little baby girl. Like Harrison, she loved to be outdoors in the pram, and especially enjoyed being parked in front of Pixie’s box in the stables so she could watch her. Frequently I went for walks around our quiet country roads, and I would lead Harrison on Pixie and push Sophie in the pram at the same time. Sophie, from her seated position in the pram, would watch Pixie’s face walking alongside her at eye level and squeal with delight and excitement.

Around this time, Harrison took to wanting to dress up to ride Pixie. He had various costumes, ranging from Spiderman and Darth Vader to knights and cowboys. His favourite was his knights costume, and he would sit proudly astride Pixie wearing his knights helmet, brandishing his sword and holding his shield. He also decided at this age, that “cowboys don’t ride ponies called Pixie”, and wanted to change Pixie’s name to “Buckeroo”. We obliged, and so from then on referred to her as “Buckeroo”. In a little boy’s world that was somewhat coloured by videos like “Toy Story”, the name “Buckeroo” was later changed to “Bullseye”, and we went along with this second name change too, chuckling to ourselves. The pony didn’t mind, and she looked after him well, as at this stage he was riding around without being on a lead rope, complete with his costumes and his imagination.

When Sophie stood up and started trying to take her first steps, we were alarmed to see that she had a great deal of weakness in her left ankle, and her head tilted also to the left side. These defects had not been able to be evaluated while she was at the crawling stage. The physiotherapy
intensified, and we had to get a special shoe and splint for her leg. Around this stage too, we as parents observed the dawning of the age of “sibling rivalry”. Up until the stage when Sophie stood up and tried to walk, Harrison had taken very little notice of her.

Suddenly, I was having to deal with incidents where he would go up to her and push her over quite deliberately. Naturally, such action on the part of Harrison would cause me to become very angry with him, and rush to Sophie’s aid. Sophie at this time quickly earnt the nickname of “Stands with a Fist”, because she would see Harrison coming at her and immediately stand in defence.

Along with all her physiotherapy, I started putting Sophie on Pixie’s back, just like I had done with Harrison at the same age. At first, because her left side was so weak, she would slip off to one side and couldn’t manage to sit in balance while the pony walked. Pixie was wonderfully patient throughout all this, almost as if she knew that she had a precious bundle at
risk. If Sophie started to list over to one side, Pixie would stop by herself, without any signals from me. Around this time, I also started putting Sophie in the swimming pool, only to see that her right arm and legs moved well, whilst her left arm and leg stayed relatively still. Every day
we worked on her swimming and her riding, and over a period of about 12 months she strengthened her left arm and leg enormously. The doctors were very impressed, and listened with interest as I related my theory on the importance of children being able to ride before they walk.

By the age of 2, Sophie had astounded the doctors with her progress. They assessed her movement on the left side to be within the range of “normal”, and were very pleased with the success of the surgery. She was a strikingly beautiful child, with a strong and determined will of her own. She always wanted to ride Pixie, and so just before she turned 3, we bought a new pony for Harrison. This sweet chestnut pony came from another family of professional horse trainers, whose daughter had outgrown him. He was perfectly trained in Western and English riding. Harrison immediately took to showing off in his western saddle how he could back and spin the pony, and at the age of 5 he was riding around our property unassisted with enormous confidence and poise.

Whilst Harrison was riding, Sophie would demand to be lead around on Pixie. As she didn’t like calling Pixie “Bullseye”, because “girls don’t ride ponies called Bullseye”, we invited her to think up her own name for Pixie. She came up immediately with the name “Tooti Bucky”, which is the sort of name that only a 3 year old girl could think up. It didn’t take long for her to be demanding to ride by herself, as she was watching Harrison on his pony and this was consistent with the fierce sibling rivalry which coloured the relationship of these two siblings.

Trusting completely in the good nature of this worldly little black Shetland, I started Sophie riding by herself in the arena. Because her legs were so short, I gave Sophie a riding crop to give the pony the signal to go forward. With no hesitation, as soon as she received the instruction on how to use the whip, Sophie gave Tooti Bucky a couple of very confident whops on the neck with it.

The pony looked surprised and surged forward. Sophie, with all the confidence and flair of an experienced rider, steered her round and round the arena, squeeling with excitement as the pony went forward at her command. I could only stand and watch in amazement. Sophie developed a very close bond with Tooti Bucky. Where Harrison had only been interested in the action side of riding, preferable in costume and with an audience, Sophie had a simple and genuine love of just spending time with her pony. She would go and get her from her paddock, chastise her strongly if she tried to eat grass whilst being led, and tie her up in the stables and groom her for hours. One day, I came out to the stables and found her with her arms around Tooti Bucky’s neck, telling her how much she loved her. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and told me “I don’t want Tooti Bucky to die”. My father had recently died suddenly, and Sophie had witnessed the grief of death in our family.

It didn’t take long for Sophie to demand to ride out of the arena with her brother. Seeing that she had an exceptional relationship with Tooti Bucky, I opened the gate. We have a 450 metre training track around our horse paddocks for the racehorses, and Harrison would ride round this track at a very fast canter on his pony. With my heart in my mouth, I watched my 3 year old daughter, who we had nursed through a long recovery, confidently wallop Tooti Bucky on the neck as she trotted past me out the gate, with every intention of going just as fast as her brother. Tooti Bucky obligingly cantered off around the track, with Sophie giggling and squealing with the joy and thrill of it all.

Once Sophie had discovered speed, she would canter everywhere. As Harrison was jumping small cavallettis, she wanted to do this too. Shetland ponies are not renown for their speed or their jumping ability, but Tooti Bucky proved to be very agile and very willing. Many people who saw my children riding found their confidence and ability astounding. I maintained it was because they had the opportunity to ride before they walked. Confidently handling their ponies at an early age, also taught them a great deal of responsibility and poise.

I ended up having a third child, called Heath, and he has developed his riding skills in the same way as his older siblings. Sophie has a new pony called Danny Boy, who is a fine Welsh Mountain show pony. Heath is now the third child to be riding around on Tooti Bucky. So far he hasn’t wanted to change her name, but being ever so much more worldly at 3 because of the influence of his older siblings, his TV hero is Zorro. He keeps reminding me that Zorro rides a black horse too, and he keeps trying to stand on Tooti Bucky’s back like a stuntman.

This little black pony is a legend in her own lifetime, as she patiently puts up with the fantasies and attention of another child. Pixie, with all her aliases, has a precious place in our family, and will live forever in our memories.

Jenni Ahmat