The Saddle Club is a series of intermediate children's books published by Bantam Books between 1988 and 2001. The series was created by a publishing house using the contract writing services of self-professed equestrian novice Bonnie Bryant. Many titles were also written by ghostwriters. Spin-offs include four other book series: The Saddle Club Super Editions, The Saddle Club Inside Stories, Pony Tails, and Pine Hollow. The books were adapted into a TV show also called The Saddle Club . In the 1990s, there was also a fan club with a monthly newsletter and a line of model horses manufactured by Breyer.
The books follow the adventures of best friends Carole Hanson, Stevie Lake, and Lisa Atwood, who live in the fictional town of Willow Creek, Virginia, and ride at Pine Hollow Stables. In the first book of the series, Horse Crazy, Carole and Lisa help Stevie with her mathematics project, which launches the girls' friendship and the titular club.
At the beginning of the series, Carole and Stevie are twelve-year-old seventh-graders and Lisa is a thirteen-year-old eighth-grader. Although the characters live through several vacations and years of school, they do not age until the "Pine Hollow" series.
The Saddle Club is written in a third-person style. In early books, the narration was third-person limited and shifted from character to character, often offering more insight into the thoughts and feelings of the Saddle Club members and their friends; in later books, the narrative style became much more encompassing.
In 2003 the series was awarded a BILBY Award. [1]
Two additional types and two series of books were spun off following the popularity of The Saddle Club.
The Saddle Club Super Edition books also focus on Carole, Lisa, and Stevie, but are longer and occasionally written in a different style. For example, Super Edition #1, A Summer Without Horses, is broken into four sections, and the first three are about Lisa, Stevie, and Carole's personal experiences. Other Super Editions follow the same third-person narrative style of the regular series. For more information about the Super Editions, see the List of Saddle Club books.
The Inside Story books are written as diaries or journals. In each, the premise is that the title character - Stevie, Lisa, or Carole - is doing a project or writing a journal that requires her to explain her impressions of events in regular The Saddle Club books that involved all three girls. The Inside Story books are longer than the Super Editions. For more information about the Inside Story books, see the List of Saddle Club books.
The Pony Tails books are a spinoff series aimed at young readers ages 7–10. They focus on May Grover, Corey Takamura, and Jasmine James, who are also riders at Pine Hollow and form their own club called the Pony Tails.
The Pine Hollow books are a spinoff series aimed at teen and young adult readers. They focus on the same characters four years later, beginning during the summer before Lisa's senior year of high school and Carole and Stevie's junior year. Many characters from the Saddle Club books reappear in the Pine Hollow series, and two major new characters—Scott and Callie Forester—were introduced. The last Pine Hollow book, #17, Full Gallop, was written in 2001 and is chronologically the last book in the Saddle Club canon.
In 1990, a short story called Happy Horse Day! was published along with a short story in the Fabulous Five series by Betsy Haynes. The book was included in a Jean Nate gift set of bath products for girls.
In 2001, The Saddle Club was adapted into a TV series called The Saddle Club , which was filmed and set in Australia. There are notable differences between the characters and plotlines in the books and the TV series. The show ran for three seasons and has been broadcast on ABC and FOX8 in Australia, on Discovery Kids and public television in the United States, on YTV network in Canada, and on PopGirl in the UK. Episodes are available on DVD.
The Pony Express was an American express mail service that used relays of horse-mounted riders between Missouri and California. It was operated by the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company.
The Saddle Club is an Australian-Canadian children's television series developed by Sarah Dodd, based on the books written by Bonnie Bryant. Like the book series, the scripted live action series follows the lives of three best friends in training to compete in equestrian competitions at the fictional Pine Hollow Stables, while dealing with problems in their personal lives. This series debuted in 2001 and ended in 2009.
A horse show is a judged exhibition of horses and ponies. Many different horse breeds and equestrian disciplines hold competitions worldwide, from local to the international levels. Most horse shows run from one to three days, sometimes longer for major, all-breed events or national and international championships. Most shows consist of a series of different performances, called classes, wherein a group of horses with similar training or characteristics compete against one another for awards and, often, prize money.
Philippa Rachel "Pippa" Funnell MBE is an equestrian sportswoman who competes in eventing. In 2003, she became the first person to win the Rolex Grand Slam of Eventing. She also won Badminton in 2002 and 2005. At the European Championships, she has won two Individual golds (1999–2001) and three team golds (1999–2003). She is a three-time Olympic medallist, winning team silver in 2000 and 2004, and an individual bronze in 2004. She also competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Hunt seat is a style of forward seat riding commonly found in North American horse shows. Along with dressage, it is one of the two classic forms of English riding. The hunt seat is based on the tradition of fox hunting. Hunt seat competition in North America includes both flat and over fences for show hunters, which judge the horse's movement and form, and equitation classes, which judge the rider's ability both on the flat and over fences. The term hunt seat may also refer to any form of forward seat riding, including the kind seen in show jumping and eventing.
Barbara "Bonnie" Bryant Hiller is an American author; as Bonnie Bryant she wrote many children's and young adult books; she is best known for writing the intermediate horse book series The Saddle Club, which was published by Bantam Books from October 1988 until November 2001. She also wrote as B. B. Hiller.
Lara Jean Marshall is an English-born Australian actress, singer, and dancer. She is best known for her role as Lisa Atwood on the Australian television series "The Saddle Club" in the first two seasons.
Gymkhana is an equestrian event consisting of speed pattern racing and timed games for riders on horses. These events often emphasize children's participation and may be organized by a recognized Pony Club or a 4-H club. Very small rodeo-like events with little or no prize money, designed for beginners or riders at a local level, are sometimes called playdays. In parts of the western United States, this type of competition is usually called an O-Mok-See. "Gymkhana" is the word used in most of the rest of the English-speaking world, including the United Kingdom and both the East Coast and the West Coast of the United States.
Patricia Leitch, was a Scottish writer, best known for her series of children's books in the pony story genre about Jinny Manders and her wild, traumatised Arabian horse Shantih, set in the Scottish Highlands. Leitch was born in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland.
Chestnut Hill is a novel series created by Lauren Brooke. "Chestnut Hill" is a spin off series to the Heartland series. The first book in the series, The New Class, was published in August 2005. The series revolves around four girls who live together at a boarding school in Virginia called Chestnut Hill, where they take classes and ride horses at a stable on the campus. Lauren Brooke has said that she went through a lot of preparation for this series, including listing and developing over one hundred names and drawing maps of her new setting. The books have four different perspectives, friends Dylan, Malory, Felicity (Honey) and Lani.
Pony Club Secrets is a series of junior and intermediate reader children's books published by HarperCollins in the United Kingdom. The series was created by author and journalist Stacy Gregg, and is loosely based on her experiences as a young rider growing up in New Zealand. It blends authentic horse and pony detail with a mixture of fantasy and adventure. The series is set in a fictionalised version of New Zealand, in an area called Chevalier Point.
Canterwood Crest is a series of novels by Jessica Burkhart. The series follows middle school students at Canterwood Crest Academy, an elite boarding school for highly competitive equestrian riders. It begins by following Sasha Silver, a transfer student at Canterwood Crest. While attending Canterwood, Sasha encounters a disparate collection of students, including snobbish alpha rider Heather Fox and her eventual love interest Jacob. Throughout the series, the team members work together amidst a slew of personality clashes and romantic conflicts. In later books, the series switches focus to new characters Drew Adams and Lauren Towers.
Texas to Bataan is a 1942 American Western film directed by Robert Emmett Tansey. The film is the seventeenth in Monogram Pictures' "Range Busters" series, and it stars John "Dusty" King as Dusty, "Davy" Sharpe and Max "Alibi" Terhune, with Marjorie Manners, Steve Clark and Budd Buster.
Comin' Round the Mountain is a 1936 Western film directed by Mack V. Wright and starring Gene Autry, Ann Rutherford, and Smiley Burnette. Based on a story by Oliver Drake, the film is about a Pony Express rider who is robbed and left to die in the desert, where he is saved by a wild horse he captures and later uses to round up other horses to be used in the race for a government contract.
Josephine Mary Wedderburn Pullein-Thompson MBE, sometimes known as Josephine Mann, was a British writer known for her pony books. She was a leading member of the Pony Club and PEN International. Her mother and two sisters, Christine and Diana also wrote and they created a large number of books and many of them were on the theme of horses.
Christine Pullein-Thompson, later Christine Popescu and a nom de plume of Christine Keir was a British horsewoman and writer known for her pony books. Her mother, her two sisters and her daughter also wrote pony books; together they created over 200 books for children - and Christine wrote over 100 of them.