Ponies are smart, contrary, and lazy. One of Marl's ponies is out of the crazy arab stallion she had leased. Malabar is brilliant, and uses his intelligence to lay his "adorable pony act" on you to avoid work. Once you convince him that you're smarter than he is, he's an incredible performer.
Malabar will come running of Marl calls him, and the other horses follow out of curiosity. If anybody else calls him, he runs for the farthest corner of the field.
Aki will follow you around even if you don't have a camera. He's always trolling for a petting.
It's now safe for the neighbor kids to cut through his field, but they still don't. The complaint is "the dumb horse just follows us around trying to get us to pet him."