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I am writing mostly to respond to your description of the content of the novels. I get very exited by ponygirl fantasies and scenes. In real life my ponygirl play has been limited to being strapped into a bit, harness, and "tail," and then made to act like a horse (prance, trot, and canter around the room under the encouragement of a crop, neigh, hold a "horsey" pose in order to be examined, measured, and judged for proper posture), and while that is enormous fun, I love to imagine what it would be like to be treated that way in a more encompassing way and for a much longer period of time, worked hard during the day, and then tied up in a stable at night, perhaps by a septum ring, given my meals in a feedbag strapped to my face, and maybe given a nice rubdown if I've been a good pony. Mmmmmm, mmmmm good! There's nothing I like better than some imaginatively-applied degradation.

(Which brings up another topic, but since it's a sidepath, I'm gonna stick it in a parenthetical remark. Some of the recent conversations I have read on terminology have automatically linked "degradation" with calling someone things like "a worthless piece of shit." While degredation can involve VA (verbal abuse), it doesn't always have to, in my experience. Personally, I hate VA--it pushes every button I have, probably hits too close to my childhood--but I love other kinds of degradation or intense humiliation. Being forced to act in a ridiculous fashion, as something you are definitely not (a ponygirl), is certainly degrading, but (for me, at least) the degradation is experienced as positive. I don't know why being told I am something I am not (a worthless piece o' shit) is such a different and so much more horrible experience for me, but there's no doubt that it is. Perhaps I lack some ability to convince myself that the VA is not real, is not what the person really thinks about me. The jury's still out on that one. All I know is that most VA, if spoken halfway convincingly, hurts BAD.)

Back to the subject. Anne Rice's Beauty series had some nice ponygirl and ponyboy scenes in it. The human ponies were strapped into rigid harnesses while standing erect and then made to pull their owners in carts and carriages.

There may be an actual ponygirl farm in England. The guy who purportedly runs the farm wrote a letter to EIDOS magazine describing the operation, and along with the letter they published a photo of an attractive naked ponygirl pulling a cart. Some parts of the operation didn't appeal to me at all (they keep the ponygirls fit by having them mudwrestle with each other--while I know that this is an immensely popular spectator sport, wrestling with others, especially other ponygirls, gets a "98" on my personal bore-o-meter), but if this place is real, it is definitely on my list of "must-sees whenever the heck I get to Europe" along with all those spooky castles, an Inquisition museum or two, and that S&M hotel in Switzerland .