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Notes and follow-up activities for each episode (3.5MB pdf)

The year is 1912 and a gangly colt is sold to a Devon farmer. The colt is led back to the farm where he makes friends with the farmer’s son, 13-year-old Albert Narracott.

The farm is in financial difficulty but the outbreak of war gives Mr Narracott the chance to make some money by selling Joey.

Joey trains as a cavalry mount and makes friends with Topthorn, a black stallion. Then the two horses find themselves on a troop ship, bound for the battlefields of France.

Joey has a new rider, the kind-hearted but heavy-handed, Trooper Warren. Joey and Topthorn ride into battle a second time and are stranded behind enemy lines with their riders.

Joey and Topthorn are in the hands of the German army and put to work hauling an ambulance cart between the front line and a field hospital. Their one consolation is that they are stabled at a local farm and cared for by Emilie - a frail, young French girl - and her elderly grandfather.

Joey and Topthorn endure a tough life hauling a gun carriage around the Front. The conditions take their toll on Topthorn, but he is cared for by an old soldier called Friedrich.

The German camp is attacked by the British and a terrified Joey bolts away from the gunfire. Later he finds himself alone in no-man's-land, his leg injured.

Soldiers from both sides wish to keep Joey. They settle his ownership with the toss of a coin in the middle of no-man's-land...and so Joey returns to the British side.

Joey is reunited with Albert... but almost immediately he is struck down by a potentially fatal illness. Albert and the other soldiers will have to provide round-the-clock care.

The War finally comes to an end but the army decides the horses, including Joey, will be sold at auction in France. What can Albert and the other soldiers do to save him?