In full dressage display and pulling the lightweight display chariot, Flame was a stunning picture - and it was easy to see why she had been given this name. Her lustrous red hair was back-combed and piled atop her head to set off the tall waving emerald green plumes. Between her thighs her luxuriant pubic bush had been allowed to grow back to full length and spread, before being carefully plucked and trimmed, like a well-manicured lawn, to a crisp half-inch even length across her pubis and lower belly, the edges of the triangle plucked militarily neat and straight. Flame was now kept plucked along the sexual cleft itself to leave the plump labia and, occasionally, the heavy gold barbells of the labial seal visible. She was also kept bald just around the clitoral junction, so that the D-ring, now clipped to the girdle and thus constantly pulling the transfixed clitoris outwards and upwards could also be seen. The clitoral piercing itself had the effect of keeping the tiny stalk in a state of semi-erection even when Flame was unharnessed, while the way the D-ring, shaped like a small gold stirrup, sat on her labia kept the clit and its protective, fleshy prepuce pulled out from between the plump and normally enfolding labia. Flame's clit and its fulsome, folded hood were thus now on perpetual and blatant display, like a miniature cockscomb brightly pink at the upper junction of the tightly sealed cleft.

As Flame stood for inspection, the Don reached out with the crop he always carried and lightly tapped the inside of a smooth, alabaster thigh. Instantly the high-booted feet stamped apart and without further command Flame flexed her knees, swivelling her hips up and forward to show her pierced and tightly closed sex.

Lady J noted the way the barbells pulled the bald lips of Flame's 'vent' together as well as outwards, how tightly the vent was thus closed, the fat folds of flesh literally riveted together. Don Estanio explained that so tightly had Flame's sex been closed it had been necessary to fit her permanently with a small gold pipe, a catheter, so that her bodily functions were not impaired. He also explained that, as with all the pony-girls, Flame was on contraceptive tablets which prevented her normal monthly cycle from occurring.

In marked contrast to the other girls who usually sported full and all-over tans, Flame's naturally white skin had achieved the colour and translucent quality of fine porcelain: Don Estanio explained that Flame was now never trained or allowed naked out of doors in strong sunlight, but instead trained in the indoor school during the day, and in the outdoor arena only during the evening, under arc lights. It would be in this arena, under these same arc lights, that she would compete. Almost as an aside, Don Estanio told Lady J that it was his intention to race Flame only once, in the Grand Gala. That way, he said, her form would be unknown to all but him, and thus the odds she would carry would inevitably be long. He expected, he said, to make a considerable killing in the betting on the race.

Lady J. saw with a churning feeling in her own vitals the size and thickness of the rings now forced through Flame's nipples, the consequent if artificially induced size and thickness of the nipples themselves, and tried to stop herself thinking of the rigours her niece must have had to bear to have such modifications made to so sensitive an area.

She noted how in this particular harness Flame's already heavily stretched and swollen teats had been pulled through open-frame cylindrical metal wire 'sleeves' which sat behind the thick rings, giving an artificial extension of almost 2in to the heavy, toughened nipple and that part of the aureole also pulled through into the sleeve. Yet Flame stood with such obvious pride, bore her bodily alterations with such pride, that Lady J's misgivings about what she had allowed her niece to embark upon could be naught but calmed, even set aside, by the young woman's obvious contentment with her state. As Don Estanio briefly described to Lady J the lengthening and toughening procedures endured by Flame to induce such extraordinary development, she could not help thinking of the pale pink nipples of the young Jayne she had first begun to school herself in those early training sessions in the stable-yard at Hardinge Hall. Lady J looked now at the artificially matured teats, purplish-brown in colour and thick, leathery, in appearance. Even without the heavy rings pushed through their centres, their incongruity would still draw the eye every time Jayne showed her breasts bare or even bra-less under a lightweight top or sheer gown. She wondered how Jayne herself must feel about the transformation of her breast-tips - and indeed if what must have been done to Jayne's nipples to render them so prominent must not have been almost unendurable to bear. Clearly, she had trained her niece well in the arts of stoicism and self-discipline.

As if reading her thoughts, Don Estanio explained to Lady J how despite the very rigorous nipple training programme through which her niece had been put that Flame had uttered no complaint, shown no distaste for what was being done. 'She has' added the Don admiringly 'been entirely co-operative. Several of the treatments are quite uncomfortable, but she offers herself willingly, holds still while her end-points, as we call them in the vernacular of the fancy, are being worked on, and never complains. When she returns again to being a woman, she will have nipples as tough as india-rubber and as thick and long as a small cigar.’

The pair - Don Estanio and Lady J - took their seats at the edge of the arena in the indoor school where Jayne herself had first been introduced to the sight of a high-steeping pony-girl, and Don Estanio nodded to Gregor. With nothing more than a quiet click of his tongue, the groom-driver gathered his charge, urged her forward and began to put her through her paces. First the proud, stately walk, long legs beautifully straight, each flicking swing of the leg as the pony-girl advanced causing the firm, bare breasts to quiver lightly. Then the more demanding steps, including the tiptoeing high-stepping prance. Despite her mixed emotions. Lady J's own abilities as a connoisseur of pony-flesh could not be held back and she found herself watching Flame as critically as any expert.

'She has mastered "the gather" well, I see' Lady J remarked to Don Estanio as Flame pranced lightly up the arena towards the seated pair, her beautiful ringed breasts bouncing together in unison at each step, as required by the fancy's esoteric dressage rules. And later, "Splendid!", as Flame did a stately pass at the extraordinarily difficult 'tossing prance', bending low with each step before flinging her plumed head high and back, arching her spine and throwing her splendid torso into proud relief, the bare breasts swinging and leaping.

As Flame performed her routine, Don Estanio commented in detail upon her performance. He again told Lady J that one of the most remarkable things about Flame was her own enthusiasm for being a pony-girl, the genuine effort she puts in and her apparent enjoyment of performing as well as her total yet obviously willing, even enthusiastic, obedience.

'So much so' remarked Don Estanio 'that we have devised an especially demanding demonstration to round off the dressage display. It is unorthodox - but it is permitted as a freestyle move, and I am quite sure it will earn her many points in competition...’

At a gesture from the Don, Gregor swung Flame past the seated pair, then dismounted from his driving seat.

He spoke a quiet word to Flame and, at measured walk pony-girl and empty chariot moved off to the left, turned, and came back diagonally towards the 'judges' seat. Flame stopped, half facing, half in profile to, Lady J and Don Estanio.

Rising on tiptoe she leaned forward and, as the empty lightweight car began to move forward, arched herself backwards without moving her feet until pony-girl and car presented an astonishing balancing act. Only the very tips of Flame's boots made contact with the sand. Her thighs and lower body leant forward at an incredible angle such that it must seem she must surely fall, pulling the lightweight chariot forward. Her body arched backward in an unbelievable bow, her head hanging almost vertically downwards behind the pinioned elbows between the shafts of the chariot, the whole entourage poised in the most delicate equilibrium. The slightest waiver on Flame's part would surely cause the chariot to move. The highest point of the back-doubled pony-girl was the twin-peaked breasts, slightly flattened by their own weight despite their firmness, and the exaggeratedly long nipples, now straining upwards vertically in their tight wired, gilded cages.

Gregor, who had walked to the side of the arena, walked back towards the straining tableau formed by the improbably posed pony-girl and her empty chariot. Lady J tensed as she what he carried. In one hand was a tall champagne flute of the finest crystal. In the other a long circus-master's coaching whip. Carefully, he balanced the base of the champagne flute on the narrow rim of the backrest of the empty driver's seat, stepped off to Flame's left, the side away from the seated couple, and swung the long lash of the coachwhip out behind him on the sand.

'On the night, it will be filled to the brim' whispered Don Estanio. 'Watch. If she so much as twitches, the glass will topple.' He nodded to Gregor.

Lazily the groom moved the whip back, ready to strike.

'Steady now' he said quietly to Flame.

There was a flurry in the sand of the arena, a sudden, growing whistle and then the loud crack of leather across taut flesh as Gregor swung his arm back and then forward, flicking his wrist to curl and uncurl the long lash, leaning forward to place the stroke with accuracy.

A bright red weal sprang across Flame's tautly-bowed midriff, just below the proud breasts. Neither Flame nor the chariot moved, the precariously balanced glass stayed where it was.

'Excellent!' cried Don Estanio. He turned to Lady J.

'Such control - I have never seen its equal, anywhere. She is amazing.’

Swiftly Gregor collected the glass, emitting a single, high-pitched whistle as he did so, as might a shepherd to a working dog. Flame's forward-leaning thighs leaned even further forward and the chariot rolled ahead. Languidly the beautiful body uncoiled from its graceful curve and with two dainty steps Flame swung round to stand upright again, now facing her judges. She again poised motionless - but now a broad red horizontal weal stretched across her torso like an extra chest-band to her harness, placed exactly an inch below the underswell of the pale, quivering breasts. No emotion, no sign of any sort, showed on the impassive face.

'With such a finale' said Don Estanio 'she cannot fail to win the dressage section.’