This novel – the first for 16 years from a two-times Commonwealth regional prizewinner – comes at an auspicious moment for pony tales: the American Jaimy Gordon's tale of hardscrabble horseracing life, Lord of Misrule, was recently longlisted for the Orange Prize, and Jane Smiley is soon to publish an equestrian ghost story for young readers. Here, the backdrop is the Australian showjumping circuit, but we open in 1926 with the birth of a son to 14-year-old Noah, its father her recently deceased, but much loved, uncle. The baby, which bears traces of its Aboriginal ancestry, is promptly launched in a river, Moses-style –Noah knows to keep a secret.

Both uncle and infant resurface in Noah's thoughts over the years but, with admirable delicacy and sympathy, Mears insists that readers keep a rein on their horror. Elsewhere, this sweeping narrative carries all before it: Noah becomes a champion jumper and marries another, Roley Nancarrow; disaster strikes; luck (and war) come and go; hope springs eternal.

Dappled with fast-moving light and shade, occasionally swelling with romance, Foal's Bread is too bubblingly vibrant to grow sentimental, the tangy vernacular of its cast a delight, the blood, sweat and saddle soap pungently rendered.