Since posting that last post, here, about pony play people have been emailing me, Tweeting me, and DMing me to ask me for more info on pony play. I went into my archives to see what I had on the blog, and it turns out – not much! See, part of the problem is that, this blog wasn’t started when I first got into pony play (which was years ago, back when Master and me first began our journey together). And, I don’t always post about every training session Master and me do. I mean, if there are no new developments, then I don’t post about a particular subject, usually. Pony play hasn’t changed much for us since I began to blog here, but since there is no record of our pony play here on our blog at all, I thought I would blog a bit and hopefully it will help to answer some questions people are having.
One thing people are asking me is, you know, what is pony play?
Pony play means different things to different people. For me and Master? It is somewhat like kitty play in that, Master treats me like an animal. Unlike kitty play, he treats me like a pony (obviously). What does this mean exactly? Again, for different people it means different things. For Master and me, it means learning commands similar to how a horse would learn them. Some of the commands are verbal, some are hand signals, and some still are given by a tug on my reins or a swat from a crop.
Pony play is (typically) divided up into a few categories. There are cart, riding, and show ponies. Cart ponies learn to do work. They will pull carts or lumber, and yes, there are special carts designed for human ponies and their handlers!
Riding ponies are, well, ridden! This can be done on all fours, like you see above. (Of note, these are very old pictures. This is also the way my gear was initially, though it has changed a bit with time.) I have also seen riding ponies take their handlers up on their shoulders. In this case, the pony will be standing upright (sort of how your Dad may have carried you when you were little). I have seen this in several places, but I am having difficulty finding a picture of it to link to.
Then, there are show ponies! Show ponies are trained in dressage, which is a special kind of horse dance. It is complex and involves lots of practice and hard work to master. There are many steps and commands a show pony may be taught. They also compete in events and can win ribbons and prizes for their handler or handlers if they desire.
Those are the basics, anyway. When I first became interested in pony play, I was desperate to be a riding pony. Master outweighed me almost by three times when I first met him, and at first all I could do was literally sit there and support his weight. Actually, there were many times before I learned to support his weight where I only took part of his weight. Eventually, I learned to rock with him on my back, and long after that, I learned to take fiddly, inch-y little steps with him on my back. It wasn’t easy, and it took a lot of time and strength building to get there. Sometimes we would have other people over to visit who weighed less than Master, and Master would put my bit gag in and my reins on and let them ride me around the apartment we lived in, though that apartment was pretty small.
Eventually, Master became interested in me being a cart pony. I admit I had wanted to do cart training too, but the problem with cart training is, well, you need a place to put a cart, and living in an apartment really isn’t the best place for that. It wasn’t until a couple years ago when Master and me got the chance to try out an actual cart when we attended a kink convention that had a pony track. It was very cool serving Master in this way, and I loved it a lot.
Unfortunately, I have really crummy wrists now, so the chances of me being a riding pony again are probably slim. Even with a lithe rider, I am probably still not going to be able to do it. Sometimes I sublux my wrists just putting my compression socks on in the morning. You never know though, we certainly haven’t written it off for good or anything, it just isn’t in the current cards.
So, for now Master is working on training me to be a show pony (though, we love to use a cart when we go to events with one that has one for public use). I do not know where that will lead us, but that’s where we’re headed. Sometimes if we don’t have time to put on all of the pony gear, Master will teach me a step or two to practice when he’s not around. Dance-type steps definitely require many hours of practice until they are perfected, and, it makes the time we do have for me to be in all of my tack much more useful when I understand the movements “freehand” before getting in all of that bondage. Not that Master doesn’t teach me new things in bondage too, he teaches me the majority of steps in bondage.
I know that many people want a breakdown on steps and what exactly it is that Master teaches me. What the hand signals are, what we do specifically in pony play. I’m not going to blog about that in detail though. You can easily Google human pony play to get an idea. And, as for specifics, some bits and bobs are just for me and Master, you know?
Here’s a shot of me in my pony tack from the first pony play event that Master and me went to together. It was not a competition, but just a training session with about five other ponies. To be honest, this is also the only other “pony social” event we ever went to, because we were turned off by how elitist several of the people at that particular event were. Some of them were very nice, absolutely, but when nearly half of the ponies have a snotty attitude, you start to think to yourself “Well, why bother? We can do this at home without dealing with elitism.” I am happy to say that we have never experienced anything like that since that event, and I’m sure it was just that particular group. Still, who wants to be around a bunch of negativity? Meh, not us. I will say that there were welcoming people, but, we’ve been in the kink scene for quite a while, and have not experienced the kind of elitism we experienced at that event literally any other place: clubs, conventions, etc.
What was fun about that event though (since I have gotten my grumbles out) was the fact that it was set up for human ponies. You can see in this picture here (right above this post) that there were tethers to tie the ponies. There was also a nice running area where we got to work on pony steps and jumps, which was cool. I also got to work with another handler who was very sweet and kind. I did learn a lot at that event, and the overall experience was nice (if you ignore said elitists).
So, that’s just a very brief history of my journey as a pony. Master has taken me out to clubs dressed as a pony. He has taken me to play parties as a pony. He has had other people over during my trainings, and there are lots and lots of things we have done with pony play over the years. I hope this helps answer a lot of the curiosities people have had though.
Whee snaw! =)
~Ponygirl Glofindel