Horses, ponies and foals. Horses, ponies and foals.

Jinny and her family are moving from inner city Stopton to the Scottish Highlands. Everything will be different. Jinny's father will make pots and write, and for Jinny there must be horses. 'Horses, ponies and foals' she writes on the steamed up window of their Stopton home. 'Horses, ponies and foals.'

And then there is a horse. On the way up to their new house, the family go to a circus. Yasmin the Killer Horse is the star attraction, a terrified chestnut Arab mare, bullied by the ringmaster. Jinny flings herself into the ring to stop him, but the mare belongs to the circus, and not her. There seems nothing she can do to save the horse.

After an accident lets the horse escape onto the moors. Jinny is desperate to catch her. The thin-skinned Arab cannot possibly survive the Highland winter, and it's getting ever closer. But Shantih, as Jinny calls her, does not want to be caught. She trusts no one and Jinny can get nowhere near her.

As winter closes in, Jinny makes one last, desperate attempt to save the mare who has found her way into Jinny's soul.