Chapter 3

The day started with a freezing, battering shower in the large concrete recess. Our grooms came and unlocked each of us from the chains attached to the rings at the back of the stalls and we were herded along to the recess where we huddled together, waiting for the blast of cold water. We then danced around under it while the trainers and grooms not actually wielding the hoses stood and watched us gleefully - as well they might for I suspect they got off powerfully on the sight of us, all stark naked (while they were of course clothed in shirt, jodhpurs and riding boots), jumping around under the spray.

When each of us had been cursorily rubbed down with the rags by the grooms, we were taken along to the feeding area where eight dog bowls were lined up on the floor. We had to get down on our hands and knees and feed. It was humiliating, especially with the men standing over us, watching us critically and with sneers on their faces as we fed.

There were eight of us altogether. Seven belonged to the viscount and two to Sebastian’s father, as well as me of course.

After that came perhaps the most humiliating thing of all. We were required to ‘urinate and defecate’. That’s how they termed it! We were taken to an area next to the shower recess. There was a waist-high rail along one wall and about three feet out from it an open spoon-drain ran along the floor, parallel to the wall with the rail. We were required to stand with our heels (spread wide apart) against the lip of this drain and then bend forward and grasp the rail. Then, at the order, we were required to pass our wastes.

“Urinate!” the head trainer barked, and woe betide any pony who failed to produce a healthy stream of liquid waste straight down into the drain. The other trainers and grooms were armed with canes and any girl or boy who couldn’t perform earned a couple of sharp strokes to her or his buttocks. We were then left for a few minutes in that humiliating position to make sure all our liquid wastes were evacuated and then came the second order: “Defecate!” he growled in the same sharp tone and now we had to pass our solid wastes.

You don’t believe it? I’m not surprised, but remember, every one of us human ponies thrived on shame and humiliation. What could be more humiliating or shaming than this - that we were ‘forced’ to wee and to evacuate our bowels in such a public and demeaning way? I certainly felt the humiliation but it also thrilled me - even as I blushed right down to my neck at the degradation I felt.

There we were, eight slave-ponies, all bent over with our legs spread wide apart and now struggling to extrude our solid wastes. The smell, as you can imagine, was awful but so was the whole idea of performing what had hitherto been a so private function in front of each other, and worse, the trainers. But we performed it alright. I felt my own poking out of my bottom and then dropping in a soft plop onto the bottom of the drain and I could see on either side of me, the others doing the same. I was beetroot-red of course. How shaming could they be? And yet I also thrilled as I shivered in the humiliation of what I was being made to do ...

As I say, it was certainly shameful but it was also an integral part of our healthy lifestyle. They deemed regularity an important part of our diet and exercise regimen and all of us really were required to pass our wastes in this manner and at that time. If the added stimulus of the cane still didn’t work, a huge suppository was pushed up into the offending rectum - and this always worked - and very quickly.

I was fortunate that I always passed my wastes about that time anyway and didn’t have too much trouble with the order but it was still utterly shaming to have to do it in such a public way, each girl or boy next to the other with the trainers and grooms behind us, all watching salaciously as we extruded the smelly things from our bodies.

We then had to stay bent over in that so humiliating position while the head trainer moved up behind us, walking along on the other side of the drain, inspecting each offering, poking at some with a stick before nodding to one of his subordinates who, armed with the same hose used to clean us, now blasted our anuses with the icy jet and rubbed away any faecal remnants with a rag before we were allowed to stand up, turn and march into the gymnasium to start our exercise programme for the day. As we marched out I noted the groom was now hosing away our wastes and I was pleased for the smell in that part of the room was distinctly unpleasant, as you might imagine!

At this stage, I didn’t even know the names of any of my companions. I could see how keen and eager they all were and I’ve already mentioned their beauty and handsomeness but as the grooms spoke rarely to us and then usually quietly, I hadn’t caught any names. Later, I was horrified (and then thrilled) to hear they all had equine names like Black Beauty, Brown Nose and the like but at that time, they were just other girls and boys. They didn’t give me such a name. Not yet. I wasn’t one of them yet but with every passing hour I wanted, more and more, to be a real part of that stables.

Having been cleaned, eaten and our bodily wastes evacuated, we were now ready to begin the day’s work. Now I found out why the other seven ponies were all so incredibly athletic. They really were. Not overly muscular, not even the boys, but superbly athletic with every muscle cleanly articulated, highly defined and without an ounce of fat between them ...

We started with warm-up exercises that didn’t strain our breakfasts but then, as the morning moved on got progressively harder and harder until, by noon, we were really at it, shinning up and down the twenty-foot high ropes in the gymnasium, vaulting over the horse, swinging around the horizontal bar, etc, etc, etc. We also spent some time in the weight room but the exercises here were with light weights and high repetitions, designed to strengthen but not build our muscles.

Arthur Scott, the head trainer, obviously knew his stuff for he gradually built up our workload until by noon, we were just about all in. We then had two hours’ rest, again chained by our clit rings to the back wall of the stall. At least the girls were. I had noted each of the boys had a similar ring locked around the root of the their scrotal sacs and knew they would be just as effective as a tether as our rings were.

I slept solidly for all those two hours - the morning exercises had gone on for five solid hours and had worked every single muscle in my body, or at least it felt that way. And yet, by two o’clock, when we were aroused by the grooms, I felt fresh as the proverbial daisy, part of my inherent fitness, I suppose.

Anyway, now we were going to do our real training - with the gigs or carts. We moved to the tackle room and were allocated to the various carts and now I saw there was not just one kind of gig.

You may remember that at the meeting, the boys and girls had been harnessed to gigs that were attached to the girls and boys by means of a leather belt that went around their middles - part of the harness they all wore - but I now discovered this was the most decent of all the methods used. I grinned ruefully as I realised Sebastian had introduced me to the bottom level of human pony racing, even if the ponies were all stripped completely to be bathed and rubbed down after their race.

But now I saw that as well as those models, there was another one whose single pole led forward and then curved up in a graceful ‘lazy Z’ that ended in a leather collar, obviously designed for the pony’s neck but I also noted the two extensions out of each side of the collars, each of which ended in a rubber grip and I assumed the pony would be required to grip this with his or her hands. I positively glowed as I imagined the way the otherwise naked body of the ponygirl or boy would be thus on total display as she or he galloped around the track.

There was another model as well, though. And this one had me flummoxed - until I saw the pair of them actually harnessed to the boy and girl who had reached that stage. These too, had only the single pole and it didn’t have the ‘lazy Z’ shape but was quite straight, ending in what looked to me like a large dildo with another smaller one in font of it on one of them, and a sort of handcuff in front of the large dildo on the other. It might have been naïve of me but I really had no idea what these could possibly be used for. The truth was no bizarre I probably would never have worked it out if I hadn’t seen it for myself.

I now discovered the two blacks were the senior amongst us and those two gigs were for them alone. I was taken to watch as they were harnessed to them. Of course I had seen them all galloping or trotting around the track yesterday but I had been too distant to see that all were not harnessed in the same was as I had seen at the race meeting, or perhaps I had just made assumptions without looking properly. Whichever was the case, I now saw these two, black Beauty (the male) and Brown Nose were now fitted to the two weird dildos. No doubt you have already worked out where they went - and how, but it was still a mystery to me.

The two grooms brought out the two gigs to where the pair of them were standing, legs wide apart and hands properly up behind their heads. In this position both looked superb for this pair were about as beautiful or handsome and as supremely athletic as any two human beings I have ever seen, and with their bodies totally depilated, even including their heads, the beauty of their naked athleticism was even more apparent.

As the two grooms approached with the gigs, the pair of them leaned forward and now reached behind them to spread their so muscular buttocks.

It hit me like a hammer! I suddenly realised where those huge dildos were going and I felt a rush of excitement as I imagined me being harnessed in this so bizarre manner. Up it went, the massive thing sliding easily into Black Beauty’s well prepared rectum while the other groom squatted down in front of him, tightening the small handcuff around the root of his genitals. His cock was already half hard, no doubt from his own excitement at the shame of his harnessing, but now it grew to its full majesty and quivered a little as he stood there, well over six feet tall and with a physique any man would die for, his hands again up behind his head and his beautiful biceps muscles flexing most erotically.

They left him then and now attended to Brown Nose. She too was leaning over and now her groom pushed the dildo on her gig into her bottom while the other one eased the smaller, frontal one into her vagina, sliding it on its collar down the shaft as it went further and further inside her body. I realised once this was locked in place, neither dildo would be able to emerge.

You may remember I asked Sebastian why the ponies weren’t bridled and he had just shushed me? Now I discovered the two lower stages did not use bridles. You had to be a really experienced and hardy pony girl or boy to accept the pain and degradation of the Stage Three dildo harness as well as real bridles buckled around your head and with a real steel bit in your mouth but these two had reached this stage - and still gloried in their voluntary pony-slavery.

Now, with the poles between their legs and attached to their bodies by means of the so indecent dildos in their rectums and either a vaginal dildo or genital cuff holding it in place, they were bridled as well.

The bridles were lovingly crafted of the finest leather and fitted them perfectly. A strap went over the centre of their heads, fore and aft and this divided in two at the bridge of their noses, coming down to each cheek where it was attached to the ring that also held the bit. Another strap went from the rings under their chins and also behind their heads to meet up with the strap that came back over the tops of their heads.

At the very top of their heads, a plume of feathers poked up from the bridle strap and these were in the viscount’s racing colours - garter-blue and gold. When the bridle’s buckles were all pulled tight, the bits were right inside their mouths and any speech was now impossible, even if it had been allowed.

Their hands were free but they still clasped them up behind their heads and I noted they always kept their elbows pulled right back so as to accentuate his broad chest muscles and her fine breasts as well as their splendid abdominal, serratus and intercostal muscles (the two latter at the upper and lower sides of their torsos).

It now remained only to clip the reins to the two bit rings and for their grooms to climb up onto the little gigs and steer them out on to the track. I watched them in awe - and not a little jealousy as they passed by me, heads held high, blue and gold plumes quivering and, as they were now walking, high-stepping it with each pace, every muscle on their magnificent bodies rippling most erotically as they walked, proud as punch to their afternoon training.

During the morning in the gym I had found it hard to concentrate on my own work as the seven other ponies around me had been working out, stark naked, hairless (at least except for their heads for only the two blacks had progressed to the stage of being permitted total nakedness all over their bodies) and with sweat gilding each of their bodies, but now, as I watched as first Black Beauty and Brown Nose were harnessed, and then the others, I knew this afternoon was going to be even worse.

There were two more harnessed to the ‘Lazy Z’ style gigs and again I watched in awe as each stood there, docilely submitting to the collars being buckled around their necks after which each put his or her hands up on to the handles, waited while his groom climbed into the seat and then clucked to them to take off.

The remaining four of us, the most junior of the ponies, now had the belts fastened around our waists to which the clips on the two arms of the divided pole of the gigs were attached. Our arms were left free and they didn’t put on the rest of the harness I had seen at the race meeting. We were therefore quite naked except for the belt around our waists and now, once all were harnessed and our grooms had seated themselves on the gigs, we walked out of the stables, me copying the other three by raising my knees high with each step, a fact applauded by my groom.

“Good girl, Mercedes,” he said quietly as I trotted along. “Copy the others in everything and you won’t go far wrong.”

We moved onto the track itself and he told me to start with the trot. “It’s not an easy gait, girl, and requires a lot of effort as you have to raise your knees high all the time. It’s just as demanding as the full gallop actually but if, during a race, you break even one step, you are disqualified and your owner will be most displeased, with us as much as you and so you can imagine how we will take that out on you.”

I could. We might all have been voluntary ponies but we had agreed to accept their discipline and in fact most of us exulted in it, even if it meant pain - a lot of pain sometimes. Just look at how I had taken having my clit so barbarously pierced and ringed!

He was right. It did take a lot of effort and, at first anyway, a lot of concentration to remember to lift my knees high with every step. This was required as part of this gait for it limited the speed we could make around the track and thus the spectators got a longer and better view of our bodies as we passed them by. For this reason, the trotting events (which hadn’t been a part of the single meeting I had been to) were apparently popular.

I was wrong about another thing, though. You remember I said I had been hard put to concentrate during the morning exercise in the gym, what with the other seven naked and so perfect bodies all around me and that I thought it would be the same this afternoon? It wasn’t. Perhaps they had been lenient with me during the morning, I don’t know, but Peter, the groom who had been assigned to me was not at all lenient now. The moment my attention wandered away to the others trotting or galloping around the track alongside me, he lashed at my back and bottom with his whip.

“Pay attention, ponygirl! Keep your eyes ahead. Concentrate on lifting your legs!”

But I couldn’t help it. As Black Beauty galloped by, his magnificent body utterly captivating, I couldn’t help but turn and watch his beautiful muscles rippling as he sped by and Peter, after warning me three times, now steered me back to the stables.

“Trouble, Peter?” asked Arthur Scott as we turned off the track where he had been perched on the rail, watching all of his charges as we trained.

“She won’t keep her eyes on the track, sir,” the boy said (he was about eighteen, I judged).

“And you’re going to blinker her?”

“I thought it might teach her a lesson, sir.”

“And so it will. Go ahead.”

We walked back into the tackle room and now Peter jumped down and fetched a bridle. But this one had blinkers on them - except that these didn’t just stop the pony from seeing out sideways - they totally covered his or her eyes.

I was aware of the rule against talking but I was desperate. “May I speak, sir?” I said.

“It had better be important, ponygirl, or you will be caned,” he said threateningly.

“I will try harder sir, but please don’t blind me!”

“It was not important enough to avoid the cane and as for the other, you will learn, girl, that here, we speak once only. I gave you three chances as it is your first day. Punishment, and/or remedial treatment will always follow mistakes. Yours was a grave one and so you have earned five strokes of the cane - as well as the blinker harness.”

He left me standing there then, placed the harness on his seat and went for a cane while I stood there, blinking back the tears that his words had brought. Was I really so enamoured of this new life I had chosen for myself, I wondered - and as he returned wielding the nasty-looking rattan cane, I felt sort-of weak at the knees. I had never been caned in my life and the very idea of being caned by this boy, four years my junior, was quite awful. And yet that weird crinkly feeling was back, down between my legs ...

I stood there quietly as he took up position beside me, not bothering to unharness me but raising the cane high over his right shoulder and then lashing it down to connect - hard -against my cheeks - both of them.

I screamed and jumped into the air, my hands coming down to ease the red-hot pain of the stroke. “Hands up on the head, girl,” he said softly and I obeyed - but tearfully, waiting for the next stroke. It came, but not quite as hard and this time I was able to take it stoically, a fact he complimented me on. The last three were even less powerful and I knew he had given me just a token of a real punishment. I felt a wash of gratitude towards him but then as he returned the cane to its place and now fitted the bridle with its eye patches onto my head I felt fear. I was going to be blind. Totally blind. I wouldn’t be able to see anything and would have to rely on Peter’s eyes to save me from crashing into one of the other ponies or their gigs.

What I didn’t know is that this happened to every one of us during our early stages. We had to be taught that we were not our own masters. That we had to rely on our grooms and later the boys who rode us at the race meetings to make the judgements for us. It wasn’t an easy lesson but one I learned very quickly for until I did learn it, the blinker bridle would be used every day.

It certainly was horrible. I had no idea where I was going and only the tugs on the reins told me where to go. I didn’t much like the bit in my mouth, either. The metal bit was pulled hard into the back of my mouth and it had a tongue guard to keep that organ pressed down. My mouth was always open and I salivated most unbecomingly, the saliva dribbling down both cheeks. But worst was my lack of vision.

It was terrifying until I learned to trust Peter as I trotted around the track, well aware that there were seven other human ponies doing the same thing and while none of them were blinkered, I was and could easily crash into them - with devastating results - if Peter’s attention wandered at the wrong moment.

But he was a good groom and trainer and he kept me blind for the remainder of that afternoon, well knowing the terror I felt and that in future, I would scrupulously keep my eyes staring straight ahead of me and trust to him to steer me in the appropriate course. Only the Stage Three ponies wore bridles of course and thus we lesser ponies still relied on voice commands to tell us where to go and how fast but we had to obey them just as if we were in fact bridled and had reins to give us these instructions.

It was a horrible afternoon. First it was very hard work for even if I had worked hard at my own athletic endeavours: squash and track and field, I had never trained all day. Remember I had started straight after breakfast, more or less and had exercised in the gym at one thing or another all morning, then, this afternoon, at running around the track at a trot. It wasn’t all the time, Arthur and Peter knew better than that but I did a few laps and then rested for a while, then went back to a few more laps - and all the while I was sightless. Peter didn’t remove the blinkers until we had finished for the afternoon.

They were actually soft pads that fitted right into the eye socket and were then covered by the stiff leather. They let in no light at all - not even a glimmer and it was indeed quite terrifying for the first hour or so. After that I sort-of got used to it a little but I still hated it and I quickly resolved to be obedient to Peter’s demands in future.

We finished the day’s exercises at four and returned to the stables. I was never more glad to have the belt and bridle removed and to head in to the shower recess. I was hot and sweaty and I thought the blast of cold water would be most welcome. It was and now I found that at the evening shower, we were allowed, no even required, to bathe each other. Brown Nose and Black Beauty were a pair of course although I had a fleeting desire to feel his beautiful body as I soaped him down but he was already spoken for, as it were, and so were all of the others except for Little Cock, a diminutive but still highly athletic boy who looked as if he came from Thailand. He was a very handsome young man and his light copper skin was a sheer delight.

We fronted up to each other, soap in hand and grinning hugely, began to soap the other’s body just as the other three couples were doing. From then on, the two of us were a pair and although we weren’t allowed to speak to each other, we grinned a lot and told each other in this manner how much each appealed to the other.

We were allowed as much time as we wanted in the shower but that wasn’t that long for our heat soon cooled under the cold water and then our grooms rubbed us down - hard, with the coarse rags that soon had our naked flesh glowing again, and then it was time to eat.

Once more I fed in the same indecent manner, down on my hands and knees, head down in the bowl before me, tail and bottom up high while our trainers walked up and down behind us, eyeing our naked bodies as we fed.

You will note we didn’t eat. We were animals in all things and animals were fed! If we remembered to wiggle our tails as we fed, that was to the good and might even earn us a lump of sugar but it wasn’t every day by any means. Sweet things were a real luxury and at normal times, our only sugar intake came from the vegetables that were mushed up as part of our feed.

By five p.m., we were herded along to our stalls and I was pleased to see Little Cock was opposite me - indeed, all partners were housed opposite each other. But what a dreadful name for such a beautiful man! It was accurate, however. His penis was really tiny, as were his testicles. It didn’t take away from the beauty of the rest of his body however. Small he might have been; athletic - highly muscled in his small body, he most certainly was and I delighted in looking at him.

I sat on the straw in my stall and looked across the passageway at him now. We were allowed to do this and they left the lights on for an hour so we could ogle our ‘partners’ if we wished. He grinned at my obvious interest in his body and stood up and flexed his beautiful muscles at me and so I also got up and, as far as the chain (and the still tender clit ring) allowed, posed my body for his pleasure too. As I did his tiny cock did engorge but it was still a quite miniscule organ for even erect it was little more than an inch long and I wondered that an otherwise so magnificent body could have developed such a small penile organ and matching testes.

Later, much later, Lord de Veere acceded to his request to have them removed, all of them, but I’m jumping the gun and I’ll tell that story as it unfolds later on.

Arthur Scott didn’t live in our stables but Peter and the other grooms all had rooms down at the end of our corridor. As I said earlier, theirs were proper rooms and were lined and had real furniture in them, unlike our bare stalls that had only straw. During this bedding down hour, the groom wandered up and down the passageway and now and then, usually on Saturday nights, we might be allowed to talk, if we did it quietly and kept the subjects neutral. They certainly didn’t want - and were not going to allow - any arguments among us. I didn’t see that until my last night there and so this second night, we could only whinny or neigh at one another as we posed and strutted in our stalls.

I found the grooms delighted in this hour. They were still clothed of course and we were stark naked but as we each made up to our opposite number, we presented our bodies in the best light and the grooms took advantage of it. They were not allowed to have sex with us although they touched us - and very intimately - all the time as part of their duties. I suppose it must have been very frustrating sexually for them to have us so near, our so perfect bodies constantly on show and being displayed so provocatively - and yet not be permitted to slake their obvious lust on us.

Nevertheless, they certainly took in their fill of us before lights out and we came to flirt with them just as much as we did with our chosen partners. I delighted in posing and strutting so obscenely to Little Cock and enjoyed the sight of his fabulous body, small and all as it was, posing to me, but when Peter or one of the other assistant trainers strolled by and stopped to lean against the side wall and watch, I did it to him as well. I suspect some of the trainers may well have been bisexual or even gay for some spent as much or more time peering in at the boys’ stalls but since they weren’t allowed to touch us sexually, the boys didn’t mind and some even posed for them outrageously. I suppose actually the gays amongst the grooms may have had an advantage for they could always share a bed afterwards whereas the hetero guys would have to use their own hands to assuage any lasting lust.

Anyway, despite my earlier tiredness, Little Cock and me played up to each other shamelessly during that hour and then the head boy said it was time, turned the main lights out and we snuggled down into our straw to sleep once more.