This episode opens with the news that Carole is exercising racehorses as a side hustle, which seems pretty unbelievable, even for the world of the Saddle Club. Aren’t these kids supposed to be, like, eleven? She’s exercising Prancer when the mare inexplicably falls lame, and when Carole reports this to her owner, David McLeod, he says that, since this keeps happening and Prancer is uninsured, he’s just going to have her put down. (Which, jeez! I get Carole works for you but she’s, again, ELEVEN. Maybe just tell the kid Prancer’s going to live on a farm or something!)
Meanwhile, the B-plot centres around Stevie needing to come up with $75 to pay for the Mountain Trail Overnight, because her parents want her to ‘learn the value of a dollar.’ Because of this, she offers to take care of Cobalt for Veronica to make some money. There’s a whole montage, complete with an oddly moody song about the drudgery of life or whatever, of Stevie mucking out Cobalt’s stall and polishing Veronica’s boots, etc, while Veronica gleefully watches on. Mrs. Reg notices this and attempts to impart some wisdom to Veronica about the benefits of caring for her own horse, but Veronica immediately pulls the ‘My parents pay a lot of money for me to be here!’ card with the perfect amount of smiling, ‘fuck you old lady’ energy. Veronica, please never change.
Back to the A-plot. The Saddle Club desperately try to convince Max to buy Prancer for Pine Hollow, but Max (very correctly) points out that a highly-strung racehorse with a leg injury is a terrible choice for a school horse. The girls sigh about what to do when Carole sarcastically asks, ‘What are we going to do, kidnap her?’ Unfortunately, Stevie is completely on board with this, and everything barrels out of control from there. Hence, the girls commence Operation: It’s Not Horse Theft if it’s for a Good Reason! There’s also a side plot going on about Lisa taking clarinet lessons - this is only relevant because Carole comes knocking on Lisa’s bedroom window when Lisa is being lectured about her late-night clarinet practice by her mother. Lisa sneaks out with Carole and Stevie to go and rescue Prancer, and the girls are all wearing matchy-matchy black horsenapping outfits, which is kind of adorable. When they do find Prancer it turns out she’s got colic, so isn’t it great they were planning to kidnap her after all!
We cut to Max and Mrs. Reg in the office of Pine Hollow. Mrs. Reg attempts to give more words of wisdom, this time about how Max should take on Prancer like he took on the other school horses, and he doesn’t want to hear it. Poor Mrs. Reg - her inspirational talks aren’t being particularly well-received this episode. However, after she walks out of the room, Max picks up a photo of him and Barq together to stare thoughtfully at it, so obviously we know he’s going to change his mind.
Since they have to keep Prancer walking to prevent her from colicing, the Saddle Club take Prancer out to a shed at Pine Hollow anyway, as planned. They call the local vet, Dr. Judy Baker, to come and look at her. Judy seems to find nothing amiss about the three girls being up in the middle of the night with no adult in sight, and says she’ll send McLeod the bill for Prancer’s treatment. Business as usual, I guess. The girls immediately, and all sounding pretty guilty, say they’ll take care of the bill, which is finally enough to make Dr. Baker suspicious. She begins asking some pretty reasonable questions: What are you doing this late at night? Why do you have Prancer, who belongs to David McLeod, in an old barn on Pine Hollow? You know, the questions she should’ve asked the second she saw them. The girls make some pretty unbelievable excuses about how they totally visit Prancer every night, and Judy inexplicably buys this in an, ‘Aw, you guys really love this horse’ kind of way. She tells them that Prancer’s appointment will cost $200. The girls take an aside to freak out about where they’ll get this money from. Carole offers her own money, as well as Stevie, who pulls out an envelope which has ‘MOUNTAIN TRAIL OVERNIGHT DO NOT SPEND’ written on it in huge letters, which is genuinely quite funny. The Saddle Club then spends the rest of the night keeping Prancer walking, set to (yet again?) another weirdly moody, out of place song. This one’s about broken hearts or something. Cut to Max (looking adorable in a fuzzy blue dressing gown) visiting Barq and giving him a carrot, looking all pensive and thoughtful. He even shakes his head ruefully as the camera pans down to Barq’s nameplate on the stable door, just to make it really clear to the audience who he’s thinking about.
The next morning, the girls are confronted by David McLeod. He threatens to call the police, when who comes to save the day but Max and Barq! Max makes an offer for Prancer, which McLeod accepts. Max says there’s no need to involve the police because he’ll take care of things with the girls, which amounts to him giving a heartfelt speech saying, ‘Thank-you girls, all that horse theft reminds me of the reason I got into this business in the first place.’ Or something like that. He then talks about how Prancer is going to be a lot of work, the Saddle Club needs to be up to the challenge … you know the drill.
In the next scene, the girls are gushing over Prancer when Veronica stomps in and demands that Stevie take care of Cobalt for her. Stevie announces that her selflessly using her own money for Prancer’s medical bill impressed her parents so much that they’re paying for her Mountain Trail Overnight trip after all, which causes Veronica to stomp off. Lisa’s also able to go on the camp because her late-night clarinet playing means her mother wants her out of the house. It seems like Carole’s the only one who won’t be able to go, because she also spent all her money on Prancer’s vet bill, when Mrs. Reg announces that since Prancer is now a Pine Hollow horse, she’s going to pay Carole back her money. Cue a group hug and Mrs. Reg asking if she can be the fourth member of the Saddle Club, which is honestly pretty cute. Roll credits!
Running Tallies
Crimes Committed by the Saddle Club: Trespassing and horse theft. Potentially breaking and entering since they went inside McLeod’s stables, too, although it’s not clear if the building was locked when they entered it, or if Carole had a key or something. I’m not actually sure if the stables being locked is relevant, but it feels relevant to me.
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