It's always been the two of them: just Kate and her mother. But now her mother has remarried, and has a new baby. Kate is happy about none of this. She's offered a job at a castle being in sole charge of children's ponies, and horses used for jousting. Kate has the normal sort of worries anyone has about their first job. Will she cope? Will the children like her?

This book has all the Pullein-Thompson technical detail you expect as Kate teaches three children who've taught themselves to ride that there is a Better Way, as well as schooling the horses used for jousting. But in amongst normal horsy life, something odd is going on at the castle. Are there prowlers, or is it Kate's imagination? And where does Charlie vanish to during the tournament?

Combining solid horse detail with adventure, this is the last fictional title Josephine Pullein-Thompson wrote, and it's one of her best.