The Red Pony is about a boy named Jody and his miniature adventures in life. The book is broken up into four parts which read more as four separate stories in Jody's life, as opposed to sequential chapters.

The first part tells how Jody gets a red pony who he loves and adores, and dreams of the adventures they will have together; but after he trains it the horse dies/has to be put to death.

The second part tells of how a man Gitano comes through and stays with Jody's family, but ends up stealing from them before he disappears up into the mountains.

The third part has Jody waiting for a colt that he is promised, but the waiting, along with the hard and intense pregnancy/labor or the colt has Jody thinking of his first horse (the red pony named Gabilan) and leaves him more disturbed than thankful.

The fourth part is about how Jody's grandfather comes to visit, and while there he stirs up tensions between Jody's mother and father, and tells his stories of the good-old-times to Jody.

This book wasn't that great, there was no plot what so ever, and pretty much the only thing that the book would offer is having a younger child learn about the world and growing up (doing the dirty work: shooting and delivering baby horses).