History Literature / TheSaddleClub

* AscendedExtra: Alex Lake and Phil's friend AJ have larger roles in the ''Pine Hollow'' books.
** Emily Williams too in the earlier ''Pine Hollow'' books, since she's the one helping Callie with her therapeutic riding after Callie's accident.

* BatmanGambit: The girls (led by Stevie) pull one in ''Stable Farewell'' to get a young rider's parents to buy Veronica's horse Garnet. The Saddle Club girls can see that the rider, Katie, was a perfect match for Garnet and really want to see Katie buy her, but on the day Katie visited her, Garnet had looked run-down and was acting up from too much pent-up energy (because Veronica had been focusing all her attention on her new horse and neglecting Garnet), and even though Katie could see Garnet's potential and was still interested, her parents said no. So the girls arrange for Katie to come back to Pine Hollow to try out another horse "for sale" that's clearly ''not'' a good fit for Katie, while also conveniently giving her and her parents a chance to see Garnet, who has now been thoroughly groomed and exercised courtesy of the Saddle Club. Just as they had hoped, after her test ride with the other horse goes badly, Katie and her parents decide to have her try Garnet one more time. This time Garnet performs perfectly, and Katie's parents buy her on the spot.

* BizarreTasteInFood: Stevie is known for ordering bizarre and outlandish combinations of ice cream and toppings when the girls go for sundaes. Pretty much nobody will eat them but her.

* ChekhovsGun: Toyed with, but ultimately defied, in the final Pine Hollow book. Throughout the book, several potential fire hazards are introduced: a stablehand who won't stop smoking on the job, a snobby girl's fancy, electric-powered water bucket, some construction occurring on the property. At the book's climax, [[spoiler:the entire barn burns down]], but it's never revealed which of the aforementioned hazards was responsible. In fact, it's not even made clear that ''any'' of them were; for all the reader knows, [[spoiler:the fire]] could have had another cause altogether.
** Played straight in the original series book ''Starting Gate'', where the girls visit their movie star friend Skye Ransom on the set of his latest movie. When Skye shows them the horse he's working with on the movie, Lisa is immediately struck by how strongly she resembles Prancer; unfortunately, however, this horse is very ill-tempered, so much so that it's making it hard for Skye to film his scenes. When the Saddle Club's horses are accidentally brought to the filming site (ItMakesSenseInContext) just as Skye is struggling with a particularly difficult racing scene, Lisa is reminded of the resemblance, and the girls salvage the scene by secretly swapping Prancer with the movie horse during a break in filming.
*** There's an earlier one in the same book, where Stevie ends up with Veronica's horse tranquilizers due to some confusion while loading the transport van, and she later realizes she still has them. They don't work in the racing scene because they would make the horse too lethargic to run convincingly (hence the need for another solution), but Skye is able to use them in the rest of the scenes where the horse isn't required to be active.

* ChildhoodFriendRomance: Deconstructed with Carole and Cam in ''Pine Hollow''. Carole sees their rekindled relationship as this, but Cam has become a jerk in the intervening years and doesn't really care about Carole; he only starts dating her because he wants to sleep with her.
** Played straight with Phil and Stevie.

* EarlyBirdCameo: {{Invoked|Trope}} in the "Inside Story" book from Carole's point of view, in which she finds and begins reading her old diary from the year she moved to Willow Creek, so clips from the diary are interspersed with the present-day narrative. At one point in the old diary, Carole briefly joins a dance club at school, and the club secretary is a girl named Lisa who is clearly meant to be the same Lisa from the series.

* IJustWantToBeNormal: Callie often resents having her family in the public eye and believes it prevented her from developing authentic friendships.

* LethalChef: Stevie in the TV series; Carole compares Stevie's cookies to hockey pucks.
** This seems to be averted with Stevie's chocolate chip muffins though. In the episode ''Herdbound'', she gives some to Lisa as a going away present.

** DisappearedDad: We never see Lisa's and Melanie's dad in the TV show.

* NewTransferStudent: Lisa, in the very beginning. She provides a viewpoint as she gets to know Stevie and Carole, and is also new to the equestrian scene. Through her, readers learn about both the characters and the horses. In the Pine Hollow books Callie and Scott Forester.
** TheWatson

* NotAllowedToGrowUp: The protagonists remain at the same ages throughout the series even though it clearly covers several years and in fact the series ''acknowledges in-universe'' that it takes place over several years. For example, ''Broken Horse'', set at Christmas, references the events of ''Starlight Christmas'' as having occurred the ''previous'' Christmas, making it an in-universe fact that a full year has passed, but the girls remain the exact same ages even though this defies logical sense. Sidestepped in ''Pine Hollow'' since that series takes place within a single year[[note]]not even a full year, at that; it begins at the start of summer break and ends a few weeks after New Year's[[/note]].

* OneOfTheBoys: Stevie has three brothers, plays football, spits, and does nothing girly except riding.
** The book ''Sidesaddle'' has Stevie attempting to avert this trope after she becomes jealous of a fellow rider who is very girly. From everyone else's point of view, it's just plain bizarre. (In the end, Stevie realizes how silly she's being and [[ResetButton everything goes back to normal]].)
** {{Subverted|Trope}} in a couple of books involving school dances and the like. Turns out Stevie does have a girly side.
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: In one of the specials, Stevie takes a blow to the head and is acting out of sorts, which concerns Carole and Lisa a little bit, but only a little. Then they buy her one of her signature [[BizarreTasteInFood strange ice cream sundaes]] and Stevie gags upon tasting it, asking who would be crazy enough to want that; ''now'' her friends are worried for real.

* SeriesContinuityError: Lisa has gotten the chicken pox at least twice, each time acting as though she never had it before. See NegativeContinuity above.
* SparedByTheAdaptation: Pepper was put down in the book 'Autumn Trial' after he was put out to pasture. But in the episode 'The Home Straight', Pepper was bought by Bud and looked after.

* ShipperOnDeck: Carole and Lisa were this for Stevie x Phil in seasons 1 and 2. Also, Stevie and Carole were this for Lisa's odd crush here and there.

* SpoiledSweet: Desi Beggins is almost as rich as Veronica and Kristi, if not more so. Yet she gets along well with everyone regardless of this, and according to Melanie and Jess 'she gives smiles, hugs and love, she's not like [[RichBitch Veronica]] at all'.
** In the books, Lisa befriends a girl named Tessa while on vacation with her family in England, after Tessa is thrown from her horse. Tessa turns out to be literal royalty, but she's kind and down-to-earth in all of her subsequent appearances.
*** On the same vacation, Lisa also encounters one of the Italian boys who had visited Pine Hollow in an earlier book, who invites Lisa and her parents to stay at his family's house when he learns the hotel lost their reservation. Said "house" turns out to be a ''massive'' estate that would rival some palaces. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in a later book, when one of the girls comments, "I never would have figured him for a zillionaire, he's so normal."

* PetHeir: In ''Million Dollar Horse'', Pine Hollow boards a mare whose deceased owner put the bulk of her multi-million dollar fortune into a trust with the mare as the sole beneficiary, with the stipulation that whatever's left reverts to her only living relative, her nephew, after the horse dies. {{Justified|Trope}} given that keeping and caring for a horse is much more expensive than keeping an ordinary pet; the owner had no one in her life she felt she could trust to take care of the mare after she was gone, so she instead made an arrangement for her money to be used to provide for the horse's care directly. It doesn't hurt either that the aforementioned nephew was a jerk who stuck around for the sole purpose of getting his hands on her money and who spends most of the book trying to find a non-obvious way to shorten the mare's life so he can inherit as much and as soon as possible because he's already blown through the money that he inherited immediately upon her death (a quarter of a million dollars -- a relatively small percentage of her total estate, but still a pretty substantial amount of money), so nobody has much sympathy for him.

* NotAllowedToGrowUp: The protagonists remain at the same ages throughout the series even though it clearly covers several years and in fact the series ''acknowledges in-universe'' that it takes place over several years. For example, ''Broken Horse'', set at Christmas, references the events of ''Starlight Christmas'' as having occurred the ''previous'' Christmas, making it an in-universe fact that a full year has passed, but the girls are the same ages for both. Sidestepped in ''Pine Hollow'' since that series takes place within a single year[[note]]not even a full year, at that; it begins at the start of summer break and ends a few weeks after New Year's[[/note]].

** In another book, Max seemingly pulls one of these on the Club by letting them believe they'd lost his mother's expensive broach before she goes out of town for a week and leaves an extensive to-do list, knowing that the girls will pick up much of said list in order to help in their search for it or, if they still can't find it, making amends for losing it. It works, but his mother pieces it together pretty quickly after she gets back and it earns him a sharp tongue-lashing from her.

** In another book, Max seemingly pulls one of these on the Club by letting them believe they'd lost his mother's expensive broach before she goes out of town for a week, knowing that the girls will pick up extra work in hopes of finding it or at least making amends for losing it. It works, but his mother pieces it together pretty quickly after she gets back and it earns him a sharp tongue-lashing from her.

* AdaptationPersonalityChange: David [=McCloud=] is this to such an extent that it's probably more accurate to say that the TV series just borrowed his name to use for an original character. The David [=McCloud=] in the books is a kind man who helps run the local animal shelter, not to mention he has nothing at all to do with Prancer's arc.

* ChekhovsGunman: Early in ''Nightmare'', there's an offhand reference to an adult rider named Betty Johnson that Max is working with in the ring. She turns out to be the author of the book that Stevie is reading in the subplot.

* HypocriticalHeartwarming: As much as the Lake siblings constantly fight, they're also extremely protective of one another when it comes to anything or anyone outside the family. This is especially true of Stevie and Alex, who have an added level of bond due to being twins.

* {{Hypocrite}}: In ''Stable Farewell'', Stevie acts like Veronica getting a horse for Christmas is the most ridiculous thing she's ever heard. Apparently she forgot that Carole ''also'' got a horse for Christmas in an earlier book. (It's not a perfectly comparable situation, since Veronica already ''had'' a horse, but Stevie actually doesn't mention ''that'' part at all, instead expressing general incredulity at the idea of getting a ''horse'' for ''Christmas''.)

* [[SportsDad Sports Mom]]: The subplot of ''Horse Spy'' involves two teenage champion riders who both have mothers of this type; while the actual competitors have a pretty FriendlyRivalry, their mothers are constantly squabbling over every little thing and they aren't shy about their distaste for each other, each other's daughters, and even each other's ''horses''. At the climax of the story, it's revealed that one of the mothers hired someone to take the other girl's horse on a reckless trail ride right before a major competition in hopes of injuring the horse so that the other girl will have to scratch the meet. Fortunately, the Saddle Club foils that plan.

* OverprotectiveDad: Carole's father sometimes fits this bill. He lost his wife a long time ago, and was also a colonel in the army, which can lead to being rather strict at times. But he also bought his daughter a horse, so all's good.
** A mother variant, Lisa's mother fits this bill. In ''Herdbound'', she tries to send Lisa to boarding school so her grades will come back up.

* PetHeir: In ''Million Dollar Horse'', Pine Hollow boards a mare whose deceased owner put the bulk of her multi-million dollar fortune into a trust with the mare as the sole beneficiary, with the stipulation that whatever's left reverts to her only living relative, her nephew, after the horse dies. {{Justified|Trope}} given that keeping and caring for a horse is much more expensive than keeping an ordinary pet; the owner had no one in her life she felt she could trust to take care of the mare after she was gone, so she instead made an arrangement for her money to be used to provide for the horse's care directly. It doesn't hurt either that the aforementioned nephew was a jerk who stuck around for the sole purpose of getting his hands on her money and who spends most of the book trying to find a non-obvious way to shorten the mare's life so he can inherit as much and as soon as possible because he's already blown through the money (a relatively small percentage of her total estate, but still a sizeable sum) that he inherited immediately upon her death, so nobody has much sympathy for him.

* AllForNothing: The subplot of the first book involves Stevie setting up a mini-business to try and earn money for an overnight riding trip after her parents threaten not to pay for it if she doesn't get her grades up. She successfully earns more than enough money, but ends up blowing most of it on an impulse purchase. Subsequently {{Subverted|Trope}} when Lisa realizes that Stevie's accounting from her business would also make for a solid end-of-year project for her math class, thereby allowing her to get the grade to satisfy her parents.

* [[SportsDad Sports Mom]]: The subplot of ''Horse Spy'' involves two teenage champion riders who both have mothers of this type, such that they're constantly squabbling over every little thing and they aren't shy about their distaste for not just each other, but each other's daughters and even each other's ''horses'' -- even though the actual riders get along relatively well. At the climax of the story, one of the mothers hires a woman to take the other girl's horse on a reckless trail ride right before a major competition in hopes of injuring the horse so that the other girl will have to scratch the meet. Fortunately, the Saddle Club foils that plan.

* IronicName: Carole's cat is a black cat named Snowball. Doubles as a MeaningfulName, since Carole gave him the name because he always does the opposite of what he's told.

* GiftOfTheMagiPlot: In the final book in the original ''Saddle Club'' series, ''Best Friends'', the girls are invited to a prestigious horse show, but none of them has money for the seventy-five dollar entry fee. Come Christmas, it's revealed that each of them sold something they'd need to compete to Veronica [=DiAngelo=] in order to give the entry fee money to another of the group. It works out for them in the end: the show is a moot issue because a freak snowstorm that strands them and the horses at Pine Hollow would have kept them out of it anyway, Carole and Stevie use the money they got to buy back the things they sold to Veronica, and Lisa, whose item (an application form) is now worthless, is left with a nice chunk of spending money.

* UsedToBeASweetKid: In the original Saddle Club series, Carole's sort-of-boyfriend Cam is kind and friendly and clearly likes Carole as much as she likes him. By the time of ''Pine Hollow'', he's turned into a complete JerkJock; he only dates Carole to get in her pants and then dumps her because she won't have sex with him, and she later learns that he was already dating another girl in addition to Carole ''before'' the breakup. Stevie specifically has this thought when Carole tells her what happened.