Showing Ponies

Reprint.  48pp, with black and white illustrations.  Laminated stiff card covers, illustrated.  12mo.  Covers are heavily shelf worn and faded all around the spine, rubbed at edges and bumped along rear lower edge.  Small label inside front covers else internally generally neat, clean, bright and tight but there are some minor signs of handling and lower edge of pages a little bumped.

An interesting perspective on the old school ways of showing ponies but perhaps the real interest for this volume is the author.  Anne Bullen (1913-1963) was the co-owner of Catherston Stud and an illustrator of children’s pony books.  She was also the mother of Jennie Loriston-Clarke, the British equestrian rider who represented Great Britain at the Olympics in 1972, 1976, 1984 and 1988 and Jane Holderness-Roddam, who competed in the Mexico Olympics in 1968 and won both Badminton and Burghley Horse Trails.  The ideal pony that Anne Bullen breed for merged with her illustrations: Cascade, in Monica Edwards’ Wish for a Pony is the pony that many young girls dream of.  Bullen made only venture into writing pony stories herself – Darkie, the Life of Pony – co-written with Rosemary Oldfield but she published two non-fiction books on ponies.  Ponycraft was a short book on the basics of caring for and riding an pony.  And Showing Ponies, first published after her death.