The Lonely Pony: Tales of Triumph

Part 1

Introduction

Many years ago there were a group of ponies, living on the south coast of England; in a place called the New Forest. This story is about one particular pony and how a simple misunderstanding changed the course of his life forever.

A Bad Start

Poor Sampson!  As ponies go it would be harder to find a more unfortunate pony than him.  Because he was born very late in the spring, he was by far the youngest of the foals in the area.  This was a real disadvantage in itself. By the time he came along, the other young ponies in his area had grown out of the playing stage.  Whenever he approached them, they would always decline his offer to play with them. 

‘I’m sorry, we don’t play games, we’re too grown up for that,’ they’d tell him proudly.

Whilst their refusals to play were always very polite, these incidents used to upset him greatly whenever they happened.  If he’d only realised they were simply rejecting the chance to play with him, and he’d not assumed that they disliked him, things might have been very different for him, but unfortunately he didn’t.

Although the other young ponies didn’t mean to be rude when they refused to play with Sampson, he still felt deeply hurt and offended all the same. Sadly for him, his failing to understand why they didn’t want to play with him was to cause him a great deal of unhappiness, as it turned out.  With no one to play with him, poor Sampson was very much left to play on his own.

Never mind, Sampson would often tell himself, If no one wants to play with me, then I’ll just make up my own games, and find ways of amusing myself, and that’s what he used to do.  Being a very imaginative pony, he used to think up all manner of games to help him pass the time during his younger days.

Sampson was also very unfortunate in many other ways too. By the time he was born, his mother was very old and she was taken away from him at a very early age to be looked after by a local farmer.  Being barely old enough to look after himself, Sampson was left behind in the forest to manage as best as he could. With his mother gone, and feeling very rejected by his fellow ponies, poor Sampson had no one to turn to for support when he was feeling down. 

Sampson’s father was not of any use to him either. Because he liked to travel and explore new areas, Sampson’s father wasn’t around very often.  He would suddenly appear in the forest one day, make a fuss of the local mares, then he’d move on to pastures new. By the time Sampson was born, his father was long gone, and probably destined never to return. 

Feeling very alone, and seemingly rejected by his fellow ponies, Sampson tended to keep himself pretty much to himself at all times.  Even when he had the chance to be with the others he chose to stay on his own, wrongly thinking that everyone disliked him.  This meant that he was to have a very sad and lonely existence.

Sampson tried to justify his lonely existence by telling himself; "I’m fine as I am.  I don’t need anyone else sharing my food or telling me what to do. I can look after myself perfectly well on my own.  I’m better off being on my own."  In time, he came to realise that being alone was not always such a good thing however!

The Round-up

Although Sampson was owned by the farmer who’d taken charge of his mother, he was something of a free spirit.  With no one to tell him what to do and where to graze, he was free to wander where he chose; this was a luxury that Sampson used to take full advantage of. Because he liked to travel around, the farmer hardly ever saw him. Had Sampson stayed with the other ponies in the area, then he would probably have got to know them better, but it was not to be, for being something of a loner, Sampson never spent any time with the others. 

The farmer was a very busy man; he didn’t have the time to go looking for him and so he left him well alone. This suited Sampson down to the ground. As far as he was concerned he had the perfect world, or so he thought!  He didn’t want any humans coming along and interfering in his life.

Unbeknown to Sampson, his world was about to change however.  He would soon have no option but to get used to a whole new way of life. Being a stallion, Sampson was not as popular with his owner as he would have been, had he been a mare, and so eventually, the farmer decided to sell him on. 

Although Sampson didn’t realise it, he was about to undergo the most frightening experience of his life. With the autumn sales looming, it was to be only a matter of time before Sampson would be hunted down to be marked and prepared, ready for the forthcoming auction.  No amount of hiding could prevent the experience from happening, for the farmer who owned him was only too well aware of his existence, even though he didn’t see him very often. Having lived in the area all his life, the farmer knew Sampson’s favourite places only too well. Even though the farmer rarely visited those places, he knew exactly where they were.

One day whilst Sampson was grazing deep in the forest, the farmer and some friends came for him on horseback. They chased after him, forcing him to run out into the open. 

‘Left, left, drive him to the left,’ the farmer shouted excitedly to the other riders around him as they pursued him.  ‘We don’t want him getting away,’ the farmer added anxiously. In reality there was little chance of him getting away, for poor Sampson was well and truly outnumbered by humans, and being on proper horses, they could gallop much faster than he could.  Sampson was only a pony after all, and he knew there was no way he could outrun the riders on those horses in the long-term.

Whilst Sampson did his best to escape the people that were chasing after him, deep down he knew that eventually he’d be forced to do what they wanted him to.  

Much to his great relief, Sampson saw a group of ponies ahead of him and he galloped towards them as fast as he could, hoping they would offer him some protection from the chasing humans behind him.  Although he didn’t know it, this was all part of the farmer’s plan, to get them all together.

‘Head them off, get in front of them. They’re going the wrong way,’ the farmer shouted to his assistants as loudly as he could. Acting quickly, some of the other men then galloped round the outside of the group, either side of them, whilst the men who had the fastest horses outran them and stopped dead ahead of them. 

Suddenly, there was nowhere for Sampson and the others to go, except for one small opening between some trees. Scared and out of breath, Sampson and the others made for that gap in the trees. That was to be a major mistake as it turned out, for up ahead, just beyond those trees, was a post and rail pen. They weren’t to know that at the time though; they were just trying to get away from the humans as best as they could, and that seemed like their best route of escape.

Panic-stricken and totally unaware of the trap which lay ahead, Sampson ran straight through the gap in the trees and straight into the waiting pen, along with several of the other ponies who were to be sold with him. Sadly for them, that was as far as they got. All chances of escape were suddenly gone.

‘Gotcha,’ the farmer shouted out excitedly! ‘Good work, men,’ he then quickly added as a thank you to those who’d helped him with the round-up. The farmer then hurriedly shut the gate behind Sampson and the others so that they couldn’t get away. Poor Sampson was then trapped in the pen, along with the other ponies they had just rounded up.

In a state of panic, Sampson and the other ponies ran round the pen, desperately looking for a way out, pushing themselves against the posts and rails that surrounded them, hoping desperately that they could escape.

Although Sampson and the others tried very hard to escape, they were unable to break free because the fences around them were far too strong, and they were much too high for them to jump over.  For Sampson the ordeal was made far worse by the fact that he didn’t know the other ponies he was penned up with, and so he couldn’t get any comfort from being with them.  As far as he was concerned, it was every pony for himself. 

One by one, Sampson and the others were driven forward into the corner of the pen. They were then forced into a smaller pen to be examined by a vet wearing green overalls. Worst of all, they were branded with a hot iron, which scorched their flesh.

Having been branded with a hot iron, Sampson and the others were then forced to swallow a foul-tasting liquid by the vet to kill off any worms that they had living in their stomachs. In respect to their future, their fate was very uncertain, for anyone could buy them at the auction - another farmer, a family wanting a pet, a mining company to work down the coal mines. They might even end up being sold to a foreign butcher, to be killed and sold to the meat trade. These were all were distinct possibilities for poor Sampson and the other ponies. Sampson didn’t know that of course, but his ordeal was bad enough as it was, deprived of his freedom and forced to undergo the veterinary inspection. 

Had Sampson been friendlier with the other ponies, he might have found the situation far less upsetting, but because he was something of a loner, this was to make Sampson’s ordeal that much harder to deal with.  

Because Sampson had never taken the time to get to know the other ponies around him, he didn’t feel comfortable talking to them.  If he had only plucked up the courage to do so