“Puke and Double Puke”, this is a phrase I have often adopted myself when I encounter something or someone that disgusts me, and it comes from this book series as it’s usually Jinny’s first thought when she meets Clare Burnley.

I have posted about Jinny’s first experience with Clare in a previous post, Jinny developed a sycophantic relationship towards Clare until discovering her deception over Spencer’s theft of the Osprey eggs.

The next encounter is Horse in a Million, a year later where Clare brings her high class horses to an amateur gymkhana that Jinny and Sue organise and wins everything – there is a lot of other drama that follows but I will get into that in another post!

Clare later gets her comeuppance in the Inverberg show as Clare loses the showing class to a friend of Miss Tuke’s and then Jinny on Shantih beats her in the open jumping. Clare is in a total sulk as she’s not used to losing and Jinny returns home to find Ken gesturing towards the sky, the Ospreys have returned.

Clare then returns in the final book, Running Wild. She is back at her house Craigvaar while her dad is leading the contract on building the new road in Inverberg- which will lead to the Wilton Collection being demolished. She has brought a new horse, Gatsby with her along with a groom, Kim. Clare wants to enter a local long distance ride on Gatsby so Jinny also enters with Shantih.

Shantih then gets loose after Jinny doesn’t close the gate to her field properly (idiot!). Shantih arrives at Craigvaar looking for Gatsby, Clare’s groom Kim was going to catch her and put her in a loose box but Clare spitefully chases Shantih back out on to the moors.

Later, Jinny having found Shantih on the moors and saving her from being drowned in a deadly bog (giving me horrible flashbacks from the Neverending Story), finds out about Clare’s attempted sabotage.

At the long distance ride, the weather conditions turn foggy towards the end and Clare takes the wrong path and Jinny accidentally follows her. On hearing a loud crash, Jinny investigates to find that Clare has had a fall and Gatsby, with his legs trapped by tree branches is dangerously kicking out at Clare’s head. Jinny drags Clare out of harms way but realising that Clare has a head injury knows that help is required…

Jinny realises that the path down to the finish line for the long distance ride isn’t far away and she can hear the other horses so she takes Shantih’s tack off and chases her away, knowing that she’ll follow the other horses and people will then come and look for her and Clare. The plan works, Clare is ok and Jinny seems to reach a bit of a truce with Clare.

As Running Wild is the last book in the series I don’t know how Jinny’s relationship with Clare pans out after. I personally would have tried to rescue Clare as well in that situation if I could- I don’t hate anyone enough to let them die, but I still don’t think I would ever be friends with her. She’s too snobby, deceitful and spiteful. I still say “Puke and Double Puke”