Joe and the Lightning Pony A Boy and His Horses Synopsis
Joe is delighted that his pony, Lightning, is brilliant at mounted games. The two of them make a great pair and Joe can't wait for them to try out for the Prince Phillip Cup team. There's just one problem - Lightning seems quite small now that Joe is growing so fast. What will he do when he's too big to ride her? And what will happen to Lightning if she is sold?
Victoria Eveleigh was born in London, but her heart has always been in the countryside, and her stories are full of the things she loves: horses and ponies, countryside, farming and people.
She and her husband, Chris, farm sheep and cattle on Exmoor – and they also have a herd of free-living Exmoor ponies. Their children are grown up now, but when their daughter was a girl she had an Exmoor pony called Tinkerbell. Their eventful partnership inspired Victoria to write her first stories: a trilogy about a girl and an Exmoor pony growing up together on a hill farm. This was followed by a story set on the island of Lundy, based on a legendary stallion called Midnight.
The stories were initially self-published, but in 2012 Orion Children’s Books published these stories as Katy's Wild Foal, Katy's Champion Pony, Katy's Pony Surprise, and A Stallion Called Midnight. The books include author's notes, charming chapter illustrations by Chris and beautiful cover illustrations by Angelo Rinaldi.
Victoria's new trilogy - Joe and the Hidden Horseshoe, Joe and the Lightning Pony and Joe and the Race to Rescue - has involved some fascinating research about farriery, aikido, Pony Club mounted games and heavy horses. The stories still have horses and ponies at their heart, but this time a boy called Joe is the main character. Victoria feels that boys don’t feature enough in pony stories nowadays and she hopes that both boys and girls (and adults) will enjoy reading them.
