Mother’s Children: How to Raise a Pony

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PHOTO: BRITTON BARKER
The Barkers get a lot of pleasure out of their pony, but are also able to use it for work.

My great-grandfather, Doss Britton, raises Tennessee Walkers in Missouri. He’s about 90 years old, and he’s been working with horses for over 70 years. I’ve heard lots of stories about his riding adventures (like the time he came home “froze to the saddle”) and other tales, too. I’ve even been told that he once stood at Frank James’s knee and watched the famous outlaw play poker!
Well, I’m only 12 years old, but — like my great-grandfather — I’ve been interested in horses as long as I can remember. And for the past five years I’ve owned a Shetland-Hackney pony named Trigger.

My sister, my brothers, my friends and I have all had great fun with Trigger. Sometimes one or two of us will travel the nearby roads in a one-horse carriage called a sulky. It’s a wonderful way to see, hear and smell the countryside! In the winter we ride all over the snowy hills in a little sleigh my pony pulls. Trigger and I also like to practice at a miniature horse jump I set up.

But Trigger also works. In fact, my family has found that the pony can be a very useful animal to have around a farmstead. Hitched up to a wagon, for instance, he hauls mulch hay and manure from the barn to the garden. When I need to make a phone call, I ride Trigger to the phone booth a half-mile away (we don’t have a telephone at home). My mother often sends me on errands, too, and my pony really speeds up those trips for me. In the autumn, some other children and I pick cider and applesauce apples from neighboring farmers’ trees. We then load the fruit in a cart, and the pony hauls it home. Why, Trigger even has a job at a summer camp taking small children for rides!

Of course, some chores aren’t easy for Trigger. He has a hard time hauling firewood up the big hill from our hollow. Once he got a load so stuck in mud on his way up that he could not move! We had to unhitch the pony, lead him home, and then pull the wagon out with a tractor!

  • Published on May 1, 1982
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