Earlier last year, my girlfriend and Sherlockian Emily S. Whitten took me to the Baker Street Irregulars Weekend in New York City, which included the Baker Street Babes’ annual charity ball. Every year, the BSB focuses on a particular Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story for their event’s theme. I’m not deep on the Sherlock canon, so I read the featured story, The Adventure of Silver Blaze, before I went.
And then there was a moment of inspiration as we were at dinner. “Hey,” I thought, “Silver Blaze is a horse. You write about horses!” Well, ponies. And so I decided to figure out how to adapt Silver Blaze as a My Little Pony story. Full disclosure, Emily says that she made the suggestion, too. There was alcohol at the event, so either or both things could be true.
Either way, it eventually became My Little Pony #83.
The story went through quite a few changes. It featured Twilight Sparkle, then Pinkie Pie, then Twilight Sparkle again. Spike was always in the John Watson role, since he writes the letters in the series. Originally, it hewed much closer to the source material, but the final product took more liberties.
In the original, Silver Blaze is a racing horse that goes missing. His trainer, John Straker is killed. And then it is revealed that the horse had run away and was taken in by Silas Brown, who disguises the horse to run in the Wessex Cup. It turns out that Straker was trying to cut Silver Blaze to make him lame and then bet against him to cover his debts.
I originally toyed with having Silver Blaze be a pony that loses his memory, but that seemed too complicated. So I changed it to a tortoise race and created “racing shells” that would cover the existing shell and disguise the missing Silver Blaze tortoise. Obviously, I couldn’t kill anyone in a Pony story, but I could still frame Fitzroy Simpson, the trainer initially suspected, for his disappearance.
I decided that in place of making a horse lame, the racing tortoise would be fed arugula to give it a stomach ache. And with that, we were literally off to the races.
Other Sherlockian references in the story include…
P. 1 The story starts with Twilight and Spike on a train ride, just like Holmes and Watson.
The backstory given mentions Auteur Cone (Arthur Conan) and Baker Streak (Baker Street).
P. 3 Leigh Stride is obviously Lestrade from the Sherlock stories. He doesn’t appear in this Conan Doyle story, but he was too good a pun to pass on. (I also gender flipped a lot of characters.)
P. 4 Twilight refers to her services as a “consulting detective”, which is what Holmes called himself.
Downey Burn includes “Downey”, a reference to Robert Downey Jr., who played Sherlock.
Millerspoke references Johnny Lee Miller, who plays Sherlock on Elementary.
P. 5 Alder Brown reference Silas Brown, who took in Silver Blaze in the original story.
Her racing tortoise Scarlet Study, (a.k.a. the disguised Silver Blaze), is a reference to the story A Study in Scarlet.
P. 6 Millerspoke is wrongly accused, as was Fitzroy Simpson in the source story.
P. 7 Twilight Sparkle’s chilliness is so that she can put on Holmes’s deerstalker and cape.
P. 8 Twilight mangles the “Eliminate the impossible” quote. (In fairness, this could have been a typo on my part.
Nock Pointe is a reference to Nocking Point wine. Which I enjoy and often have when I’m writing.
P. 9 Nock Pointe’s doll habit is to replace Straker’s mistress and expensive dress bill. Adultery is not appropriate for stories about pastel ponies.
P. 10 Spike stubs his toe so that he can walk with a cane, as John Watson does.
P. 13 Pole Story refers to my good friend, Paul Storrie. His usual spot at the Baltimore Comic-Con has a pole in it, and we’ve jokingly called him “Pole Story” there.
(This also includes a deviation from the story where the race was about to be cancelled. This also allowed me to stitch a friendship message into the story.)
P. 15 Emily and I make an appearance as the ponies in panel three. She’s the one with a hamster flag.
P. 17 Copper Beech and Blue Carbuncle are references to the Sherlock Holmes stories of the same names. And Conan Boil is Conan Doyle. So his full name is broken up between two characters.
P. 19 Downey does get kicked by Silver Blaze, like in the original story.
P. 20. Twilight’s last line is a pun on “Elementary, my dear Watson.” And the last image includes a dog not barking, to reference the famous “Dog that didn’t bark.”
My Little Pony #83 is available at better comic shops everywhere, as well as at Comixology, Amazon, and other retailers.