I’m sharing a photograph of a recently born Dartmoor foal with her mother, taken by Alice Carfrae. Several foals were born down by the house where I’m living on Dartmoor. I’ve noticed they often have a guardian horse with them too. Then they tend to join up with another mother and baby and eventually the larger herd. You can see the foals playing together or all lying down on their sides with their 4 legs straight out in front of them asleep while the herd grazes.

We have a rugged Dartmoor pony in the Nandita’s Dream book called Poppy. And Poppy walks with Nandita through a long winding tunnel in the dark as they head for the magical clearing in the rainforest, Watazee. It’s a preparation for Nandita’s epic climb to the crystal cave. Nandita has a lot of heart and so do the Dartmoor ponies. I love watching the young horses gallop flat out through the ferns, over the rocks and through the streams, enjoying their power, tossing their manes, sounding like thunder.