WILD PONY TALE

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33609, 10 August 1974, Page 10

WILD PONY TALE

Summer With Tommy. By Caroline Silver. Jonathan Cape. 112 pp.

Caroline Silver, a freelance journalist and professional horsewoman, was given £3O by the “Daily Telegraph Magazine” to buy a wild pony, break it in and write an article about her experiences. She produced a touching story about . a tiny, nervous cross-bred, which grew to love her after she nursed him through an illness, and eventually became safe for young children to ride. Then she stretched out the article for publication as a book, which is however, crisply written and fully illustrated with photographs

of a “scruffy little object” named Tommy. It is a true story which would be useful to any novice pony-breaker. But more interesting than the book is the writer herself. Miss Silver was one of the first girls in Britain to hold a jockey’s permit. She won her first point-to-point race and now competes in flat events, earning a living by writing on racing and sport for the ''Sunday Times."

This versatile, muchtravelled writer has published a best-selling survey on British popular music, “The Pop Makers" and “Classic Lives” the biography from birth of seven racehorses bred and trained to run in the Epsom Derby. For American magazines she has written more than 200 articles on subjects ranging from straight news to poetry and crossword puzzles.