Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
1 Pony Tails in the Ring
2 Demonstration Practice
3 Team Selection
4 The Call
5 First Practice
6 Christmas Biscuits
7 Saturday at Pine Hollow
8 Waiting for Corey
9 The Pony Tails Have Secrets
10 Preparations
11 In the Lead
12 Christmas in the Stable
Jasmine’s Favourite Mounted Games
About the Author
Also by Bonnie Bryant
Copyright
Don’t miss any of the titles in the PONY TAILS series:
1. PONY CRAZY
2. MAY’S RIDING LESSON
3. COREY’S PONY IS MISSING
4. JASMINE’S CHRISTMAS RIDE
5. MAY TAKES THE LEAD
6. COREY IN THE SADDLE
7. JASMINE TROTS AHEAD
8. MAY RIDES A NEW PONY
9. COREY AND THE SPOOKY PONY
10. JASMINE HELPS A FOAL
RHCP DIGITAL
UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia
India | New Zealand | South Africa
RHCP Digital is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
www.penguin.co.uk
www.puffin.co.uk
www.ladybird.co.uk
First published Bantam, 1996
This ebook published 2016
Copyright © Bonnie Bryant Hiller, 1995
Illustrations copyright © Kim Harley, 1996
The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978–1–448–19791–0
All correspondence to:
RHCP DIGITAL
Penguin Random House Children’s
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL
“There! I felt another one!” Jasmine James cried, looking at the sky. “It’s snowing! I’m sure of it. We’re going to have a white Christmas this year!”
Jasmine and her two best friends, Corey Takamura and May Grover, were all riding their ponies. They were in the schooling ring behind May’s house. They were trying to work on the exercises they’d learned at their Pony Club meeting the day before. But it was hard to concentrate on perfect riding form when Christmas was less than two weeks away.
May looked up at the sky, too. She wasn’t as sure as Jasmine about the snow. She stuck out her tongue to try to catch a flake.
“Nothing,” she announced. “Not yet.”
“You’re just not patient enough,” Jasmine told her. “It is snowing. I’m sure.”
“Even if it snows now,” Corey reminded them, “the snow might be gone when we go on that Christmas Eve ride – what’s it called?”
“The Starlight Ride,” Jasmine and May told her.
Corey sighed. “I can’t wait. Tell me more about it,” she pleaded.
“Well, it takes place on Christmas Eve night,” May began, “and all the riders from Pine Hollow leave from the stables and hack together through the woods.”
“We end up in the middle of town, singing holiday songs,” Jasmine added. “Everything is decorated with red and green and there are lights and horses and ponies. It’s so much fun!”
“Anything to do with Christmas is fun,” May reminded her.
“And anything that has to do with both ponies and Christmas is double-fun,” Corey pointed out.
Her friends weren’t about to argue with that! Ponies were what the three girls liked the best. Each of them had her own pony that lived in stables behind their homes. And they all took riding lessons at Pine Hollow Stables and belonged to a Pony Club called Horse Wise. Whenever the girls got together, their favourite subject was ponies. In fact, they were so pony crazy, they’d decided to call themselves the Pony Tails. It wasn’t exactly a club. It was best friends. That was even better than a club.
“Now I think we’re supposed to circle right,” Corey called out. Jasmine and May followed her. Jasmine tried hard to keep exactly one pony length between her pony, Outlaw, and Corey’s pony, Samurai. That was what Max, their riding instructor and Pony Club leader, had told them to do. But Outlaw wanted to catch up with Samurai. Jasmine held him back.
Jasmine’s pony was named Outlaw because he had a white face that looked like an outlaw’s mask. Jasmine loved him more than she could say – even when he acted up, which happened a lot. Outlaw knew how to hold his breath so that Jasmine couldn’t tighten the girth on his saddle. He knew how to hold his mouth closed to make it hard to put the bit behind his teeth. He knew just which pockets to sniff to find carrots and apples.
He usually did what Jasmine asked him to do when she was riding him, but sometimes he got other ideas in his head. Like deciding on his own that he wanted to go back to his stall. One thing was for certain – his personality was very different from Jasmine’s. But that was true of all three ponies; they were nothing like their owners.
May’s pony was named Macaroni. He was yellow, the colour of May’s favourite food, macaroni and cheese. Macaroni was a very sweet pony. He had the gentlest and politest disposition of all the ponies. He almost never gave May any trouble. That was different from May, who sometimes liked to make trouble!
Corey’s pony, Samurai, was named for the curved blaze on his face, which was shaped like a sword blade. Sometimes Samurai was a very nervous pony. When he’d first moved to Corey’s new house – and his new stable – the girls had needed to show him every inch of the place before he felt comfortable. And then, one time not too long ago, he had run away and hadn’t come back for a week. With such an unpredictable pony, it was lucky that Corey was a calm person. She was very good at working things out and solving problems – especially the ones her pony caused!
As the three girls and three ponies circled the ring, Jasmine was concentrating very hard. The Starlight Ride wasn’t the only exciting thing coming up for the Pony Tails. In just a few weeks their Pony Club was going to do a team demonstration. The team was a little bit like a marching band on horseback, only the riders didn’t have to play instruments. They had to make sure their horses walked properly in a procession. The Pony Club was performing with another club called Cross County.
A lot of people would be coming to the demonstration, and they would actually be paying to watch the Pony Clubbers ride! It was to raise money for CARL, the County Animal Rescue League, which helped animals in trouble.
Jasmine wanted to raise a lot of money for CARL and perform well in the demonstration. As she practised, she kept her eyes straight ahead. Her back was straight. Her legs were in perfect position. Her heels were down, her toes pointed in. She was balanced in the saddle. She held her hands just the way Max had taught her, and she used the reins and her legs to keep Outlaw going at a steady pace. It took him a couple of strides, but once he knew what she wanted him to do, he did it. She was pleased.
“And now to the left!” said Corey.
Jasmine and Outlaw circled to the left. May and Macaroni followed them.