Back in the 1950s, Deirdre and her friend Sarah, both just nineteen, came to America. The pair had left Britain, where post-war ration books were still in use for food, petrol, and clothing. Sarah was to train horses and riders for Jamie Kreuz at Bryn Mawr Farms outside Philadelphia. Deirdre was to work for the Insurance Company of North America in Philadelphia and help Sarah on weekends. What follows is Part II of their adventures with Perfec’ Granary. Click for Part I, or type the author’s name in the Search box for more of her stories.

Illustration by Rosemary Coates

Because I loved Granary, Sarah let me exercise her daily. At this time we were experiencing some freezing autumn days, so just going out at all required a gritty determination. One thing with Granary—she had the ability to actually run away whilst merely walking along the road. She would walk faster and faster and a tug on the reins would only slow things momentarily. To make matters worse, her 'walk-ability’ made it difficult to go out exercising with another horse, the sheer pace of keeping up with her exhausting the others. This 'power-walking' classed her as 'unstoppable' a lot of the time.