Taming Thowra

Once upon a time, when I was young, I was sent on a horse camp and fell in love with horses. My pleadings for a pony fell on deaf ears, but my parents were more than happy to drive me to the local library. There, I found "The Silver Brumby" books (see also here) and immersed myself in them. In my imagination I gallopped breathlessly with Thowra and Storm up the Ramshead range, and together with them I jumped down rocky outcrops.

So last year, when I spotted "The Silver Brumby" in a second hand bookshop, I bought it for my daughter, thinking that when she's about 10, she too might enjoy reading it. Well, that timeframe was shortened when a friend lent us the first series of "The Silver Brumby" cartoon. Sabina immediately fell in love with Thowra and Storm and watched the cartoon over and over again.

Then we watched the movie together, and then Papa read her the book. Sabina fell further in love with Thowra, with Bel Bel and with Golden. She would run around the playground, holding her arms out pretending that she was Thowra, rearing and striking out. Sometimes she would gallop around on Golden, and when we loaded the ponies into the float, her pretend Golden would always go on first.

In her playroom she added new horses, and they all jumped across "the ravine".

And finally, whenever we went out for a walk, Sabina would pretend we were brumby hunting. One time, I actually rode out with her, and we had to get off our ponies to herd the pretend brumbies, into the pretend corral. Of course, her brumby hunts were never fruitless. At the very least, she would come back with two brumbies. Then we had to spend time taming them, lunging them, getting them used to the saddle. Remember, we're talking pretend brumbies here.

In her brumby hunts, Sabina caught all sorts of brumbies, Bel Bel herself included. But for a long, long time Thowra eluded her. Although we did catch glimpses of him every now and then. Eventually, she gave in to temptation, and achieved a fete that no stockman in the book could. Finally, Sabina caught Thowra. And ... yes ... she tamed him, and rode him.

In the process, she became fascinated with the palomino colour. So when we started discussing a new pony, she desperately wanted a palomino. Luckily, when she met her new pony, a chestnut with a flaxen mane, she felt happy enough, as long as she could call her "Bel Bel".