30/08/2026
Anyone else old enough to remember this book?
It was the start of me putting stable management at the forefront of my mind - and it’s always been there ever since
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Thanks to Rachel Morey for suggesting this extract - it's from Show Jumping Secret, by Josephine Pullein-Thompson. This was always one of my favourites. Poor Charles with his overbearing cousins who just will not listen to what he's saying but talk on and on, listening only to their own opinions.
Here's the bit where Charles has bought his mare, Secret. She was very poor when he got her, and he's only had her a short while there's still a way to go. Nevertheless, the cousins are determined to see her, and see her they do. Here's what happens:
***
I rose early on Sunday morning. I was determined that my stable management should be above criticism; that my horse should be perfectly turned out and my tack as clean and shining as I could make it. I didn’t want my cousins finding fault.
They were coming at twelve because they were to see Secret before lunch and I was in a panic because I had washed rather a lot of her and she wouldn’t dry, so I couldn’t groom her properly. However, her tail looked lovely and so did she really in spite of her dampness and thinness and having a winter coat. Perhaps I saw her with the eyes of love, but anyway I felt that I would rather have her than any other horse on earth. Even so my heart sank as I heard Uncle David’s car turn down the lane. I knew that the whole family had come, not to admire, but to criticise; to tell us where we’d gone wrong and what we should have done. If there were faults in Secret I didn’t want to know them.
I put off the evil moment for a little by heading the relations into the cottage, where my parents offered them drinks. But Patience, Prudence and Jackie could not be put off for long.
“Where is she, Charles?” they asked. “Oh, come on, we’ve come to see your horse, not to make polite conversation.”
“Can we ride her, Charles?”
“Come on, it’ll be lunchtime in a minute and you know that we’ve got to go directly afterwards because Daddy’s asked some mouldy people to tea.”
Reluctantly, I led the way to Secret. She looked pleased to see me and bowed her head, hoping for sugar, which I produced.
“Oh, she’s rather sweet,” said Patience.
“What is she, an Arab?” asked Prudence.
“Anglo-Arab,” I answered, opening the loosebox door.
Secret made a rude face at me as I unbuckled her rug and immediately Patience was after me. “Charles, you’ve been pinching her with the surcingle,” she accused indignantly.
“No, I haven’t,” I answered firmly. “She always made rude faces long before she was mine.” I took off the rug.
“Oh,” they exclaimed in a disapproving chorus, “she’s much too thin.”
“Give her flaked maize,” said Patience.
“Boiled oats,” recommended Prudence.
“I bet he’s just starving her,” said Jackie. “I bet you don’t know how much hay a horse ought to have a day,” she went on, turning to me.
“She was poor when Claire Wentworth bought her,” I tried to explain.
“Worms,” said Patience, “or teeth; have you had them rasped, Charles?”
“Claire got her vet to look at them and she’s been wormed; she’s getting fatter every day—”
They wouldn’t listen to me. They insisted on inspecting my oats, bran and hay, but they couldn’t find anything wrong there so I was questioned and cross-questioned on exactly how much I was giving her to eat. They couldn’t find fault with my account of bucketfuls and haynets, especially when they saw the size of the bucket, so I think they just disbelieved me.
At last Jackie said, “Oh, well, let’s try riding her. I bet she’s awful and everyone knows Arabs can’t jump.”
“Really, Jackie,” scolded Patience. “At least you should try her with an open mind.”
“Jackie needn’t try her,” I said. “In fact I don’t mind if no one tries her, because I expect you’ll all say she’s awful. I think she’s wonderful and I don’t care what anyone else thinks.”
“Don’t take any notice of Jackie,” Patience told me. “You know she’s only a child.”
“I’m not,” answered Jackie. “And don’t be mingy, Charles, I want to ride her and we’ve always let you ride our horses.”
“You haven’t,” I told her. “Patience and your parents have let me ride theirs, but I’ve never ridden Oriole.”
“That’s different,” said Jackie. “She’s jolly excitable and you’ve got a funny leg.”
“A jolly funny leg,” I said in sarcastic tones as I saddled Secret. There was a silence and I realised that Patience and Prudence were embarrassed by Jackie’s remark. Prudence changed the subject. “You won’t be able to show in that saddle, Charles.”
“I’m not interested in showing,” I answered, picking up the bridle. “I want to jump, so I’ve got a jumping saddle. Shall I ride first, or do you want to?” I asked Patience.
“Oh, me, please,” she answered. Jackie began to wail, “Can I try her next, Charles, please. I won’t say a word against her.”
Prudence shut her up. “I’m next,” she said, “we’ll ride in age.”
“It ought to be youngest first,” grumbled Jackie, as Patience rode round the paddock.
I was busy watching Secret; she was going terribly badly. She wasn’t either walking or trotting properly and her head was right in the air. Patience was being thrown about all over the saddle. Soon she cantered, which was just as bad, and then she tried jumping, which was quite horrifying. Secret took off all over the place and Patience, hopelessly left behind, hung on by the reins. I didn’t know what to do, so I averted my eyes and reminded myself that it would soon be lunchtime. Soon I heard Patience ask, “Want a go, Prue?” They held a conversation in low voices as they changed over and altered the stirrups. Patience didn’t say anything to me; she wandered about tidying up the jumps and humming softly.
My leg was beginning to ache, it had done a lot of work that morning, so I sat down on the grass.
Secret went just as badly for Prudence until it came to jumping and then she refused to jump anything but the smallest of the pole and oil drum jumps. After a time Prudence gave up because Jackie was insisting that it was her turn. Jackie did ride a bit better than her sisters, mostly, I decided, because her legs were not stuck quite so far forward, but Secret’s head was still in the air and when Jackie tried to change from gait to gait she fought her wildly. Jumping was horrible. Jackie could get Secret to jump, but not in a style that would have pleased Claire and it certainly didn’t please me. She kicked and whacked and poor Secret flew about knocking everything down and was soon in a dripping sweat.
“It’s my turn now,” I kept telling Jackie, but she ignored me or shouted back; “Don’t be mingy. You ride every day,” or “You don’t have to go to school.”
Patience and Prudence came and stood beside me. “Jackie’s got her going much better already,” Patience told me. I felt like murder. “She jumped all these jumps clear yesterday,” I said, but they obviously didn’t believe me. I went over to Jackie and told her that Secret had done enough.
“Fat lot you know about it,” answered Jackie. “She’s jolly fresh and as naughty as anything. You’ve been letting her have her own way, anyone can tell that.” I took hold of Secret’s reins. “Get off, please,” I said in a voice that I could barely control. Jackie glared at me for a moment, but I was hanging on to the reins firmly and short of riding over me she could do nothing but dismount. “There you are then. Take your beastly badmannered horse,” she said and marched off towards her sisters.
Secret was upset. She wouldn’t stand still and Jackie’s stirrups seemed to be shorter than my schooling ones. I couldn’t mount until I had let them down. Secret twirled round and round and almost knocked me over several times. I had managed to mount, but I had had no time to put her back on the bit when my parents, Aunt Una and Uncle David appeared at the gate. Secret was flinging her head about; she wouldn’t walk, she wouldn’t trot, she ignored all my attempts to calm her.
Everyone began to call me. “Bring her over here, Charles.”
“Let’s see her move.”
“Does she jump?”
Patience, Prudence and Jackie were all relating their experiences and giving their opinions and the snatches I heard were far from complimentary. Suddenly I could bear it no longer; I dismounted and, pushing through the crowd in the gateway without a word, I led her in. My father and Uncle David followed me; they were talking earnestly, but the female population, I was glad to see, had headed for the cottage. As I rugged Secret up I heard my father say in rather defensive tones, “Oh, well, we didn’t pay much for her.” But Uncle David didn’t hesitate to damn her; he spoke in the heavy tones of an authority, “A ten-year-old mare with a poor constitution can’t be a good buy.”
I don’t think I have ever disliked anyone so much as I did my relations that Sunday. I really felt villainously disposed towards them; I could understand the feelings of Guy Fawkes, Crippen and the French revolutionaries. I wanted a blood bath at Underhill Farm. A lunch that was all criticism of Secret or advice given in the sort of voice reserved for the not quite normal person, ended with Aunt Una saying, “Well, since you’ve got the animal, it’s no good crying over spilt milk; you’d better bring it over to Underhill and let Jackie school it for you.”
I scraped back my chair, making as much noise as possible and began to clear away the plates.
My mother exclaimed, “What a very kind offer,” in false tones and rose to help me. We both made a dash for the kitchen and above the noise of the taps which I turned on with full force, we told each other what we thought of the whole family of Darlsworths.
When they had gone and my father had protested because my mother would refer to them as your relations, your sister and your brother-in-law, he asked me whether I thought Secret was really as bad as they made out.
“She looks all right to me,” he said, “except that she’s a bit thin, but I’ve never heard such a tale of woe as Patience emitted when I asked for her opinion. And, by the way, what on earth is a martingale? Apparently you need several.”
“If they used their legs properly they wouldn’t need martingales,” I answered. “They ride all wrong, that’s the trouble. At least, I think so and they think that they’re right and I’m wrong. But I’m going to ride Claire’s way and they can go to the devil.”
“Ah, so there are two schools of thought,” said my father more cheerfully. “That might explain the outcry. There’s always more bitterness between the schools of thought than there is between the ignorant and the expert.”
“Just like your relations,” said my mother, “too stupid to realise that more than one road leads to Rome.”
****
I do love this bit, and Charles and his mother whacking the water on full force so the cousins don't hear them saying what they think.
If you want to read more about how Charles and Secret get on, you can get the book in eBook and paperback formats on my website (and elsewhere, of course). Here are links for you:
eBook (£3.95): https://shop.janebadgerbooks.co.uk/products/josephine-pullein-thompson-show-jumping-secret
paperback (£8.99) https://shop.janebadgerbooks.co.uk/products/josephine-pullein-thompson-show-jumping-secret-paperback
