This is a My Little Pony coin operated ride at Watford Market. As a My Little Pony collector and coin operated ride enthusiast, I was very excited to find one of these still in action after all these years. Unfortunately, she’s been re-painted, so she’s lost the MLP logo off of her base and her star symbol, but she’s still got her basic colours and original music (as heard in MLP commercials here in the UK in the early 1990s).

These rides were originally manufactured by Jolly Roger Amusement Rides in 1994/1995. There appear to have been two versions widely released, loosely based on characters from the My Little Pony Tales TV series. However, their colours were inaccurate. For instance, this is ‘Starlight’ (and originally had Starlight’s symbols), but she has Melody’s colours. The other version has Sweetheart’s symbols but has a blue body and yellow hair.

The only exceptions I’ve ever found to these two versions were a pair of oddball ponies at Adventure Island in Southend-on-Sea. Both had Starlight’s symbol (this time in red!), but one was yellow with purple hair and the other green with pink hair. They both stood on red bases. Sadly, these two ponies have since been dismantled, bases scrapped and ponies placed on a juvenile roundabout in a travelling fairground, so I never had the chance to take more detailed photographs of them.

The other curious thing about these rides is that all of the pink and blue versions I’ve seen have had a plate on their bases which indicates that they were made by the “Kiddie Ride Co.” of London. A lot of Jolly Roger Amusement Rides had this same plate on their bases in the early 1990s, hence why I originally believed Jolly Roger had taken over Kiddie Ride Co. and begun making some of KRC’s rides. It’s looking as if KRC were a distributor or operator of JR’s rides now, although I’m still trying to prove this. Sorry for any confusion caused with the incorrect information I wrote on here before!