Antonia Forest fans

Actually, big difference. A riding school horse has its own owner and in a lot of cases also has a "temporary" owner who makes things up to them - the mare I learned to ride properly on was in many ways my mare and not anyone else's, to the extent that people used to grumble at *me* when she played up! I never owned her, I never had her on loan, but I was the person she came to for comfort (and vice versa). But even then, the primary owner is still that - I had a memorable encounter closing up one stables one night where a pony ignored his goodnight carrot until the yard owner came over to give it to him himself.

I have loaned out my own horse, and I happily put my friends up on her back, but even when she hadn't seen me for a couple of months, *I* was still her human, not the person giving her food and shelter.

Horses pairbond. If they don't have another horse to pairbond with, they pairbond with humans. Sometimes they even do it when there's other horses around. I've both seen this and experienced it, and two owners for one horse is not a good thing.

I suspect the Idiot Boy has a less comfortable life than Catkin - and as I've said already, I haven't read the books that feature his handover to Lawrie.