@The Smiling Pony  
I think because it was a good show. We know wrestling’s staged, we know fireworks are just some flashing lights, and we know “magic” tricks are just sleight of hand and other such trickery, and yet it’s still really entertaining.
 
On the other hand, a unicorn putting on a spectacular magic show might be the Equestrian equivalent of a bodybuilder showing off. Yeah, we can all lift things, but seeing a dude do something like drag a car is pretty darned impressive.

@Lawful Girly  
Er, that second one was for G.S.

@The Smiling Pony  
At the time they implied that most unicorns could do only one or two things, “tricks”, remember? That seems to have fallen out of canon or been retconned by now, though.
 
 
@The Smiling Pony  
It’s true, they can! Though of course, without knowing the composition of Equestrian soil it’s impossible to know if a good bag of fertilizer and potash could do the same…

@The Smiling Pony  
Perhaps some combination of both. Ponyville’s not exactly a magic heavy town.
 
And I agree with you on unicorns.

I don’t think any of the M6 and co-protagonists should be taken up as a standard or example of anything. They’re all oozing magic, protagonist power, power of plot and power of scene simplification.
 
IMO we should look at normal earth ponies pulling a plough as “normal”, with the ones pulling a train and beating off buffalo as “exceptional”; unicorns doing normal levitation as “normals” and ones like Trixie doing fanciful spells or whatever it is they do in magic school as “exceptional”*; pegasi moving around clouds as “normal” and the Wonderbolts as “exceptional”.
 
*I really wish we’d see more unicorn magic in the show. It’s very hard to gauge what “normal” is when all but known OP characters and Trixie do is basic levitation. Was the crowd in Boast Busters impressed with Trixie because it was actually exceptional magic she was pulling off (teleportation, transmutation, weather control, detailed levitation,…) or because she was good at putting on a show?

@Background Pony Number 17
 
>“Her levitation powers are almost up there with Twilight’s…”
 
Please provide an example of Rarity’s alleged magical prowess outside of music visuals. i.e; not that scene from Art of the Dress where she does all the spinny levitation. Because if that’s valid, then so is the scene from Apples to the Core where the Apple Family instantly makes a tree grow to full size.
 
I mean, unless you want to admit I’m right when I say that earth ponies can do useful and applicable things that unicorns and pegasi cannot. ;)

@G.S.  
Rarity might, but not in time to save Pinkie. Her levitation powers are almost up there with Twilight’s, but she uses them differently–mostly for manipulating multiple objects and doing fine detail work as part of her dressmaking. Speed levitation is not her thing.

@Lawful Girly
 
Maybe Twilight. Not Rarity. Rares doesn’t have enough magical strength to simply ‘toss aside’ a truck-sized boulder.
 
And Twilight doesn’t count because she’s a Ma-ahem ace-of-all-trades alicorn.
 
Though I agree with your unspoilered text.

Oh for crying out loud, not this nonsense again.

@G.S.  
That was pretty awesome… Though Twilight or Rarity could have just tossed it aside just as easily if their reaction time had been a second sharper.
 
I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say that each of the pony races’ abilities balance each other out, and all are necessary for the whole race to coexist. There might even have been an entire episode about it…

 
Yep, earth ponies are absolutely nothing special, and in no circumstances have any useful or cool-looking abiliti-*snnrk*
 

@arisoro no no no, don’t you see, that is the special power of earth ponies!

*An Earth Pony. Vowels get an an, while none vowels get an a. Most of the time anyway… Just go with what sounds best and you will usually be correct.

That’s because you aren’t trying hard enough, artist.
 
And you obviously also want them to be nothing special.

Earth ponies are best ponies!

Brace yourself. Grammar Nazis are inbound.

An*