The Velvet Evolution--"National Velvet" in the Eyes of the Beholder

"Edwina, Malvolia and Meredith were all exactly alike, like golden greyhounds. Their golden hair was sleek, their fine faces like antelopes, their shoulders still and steady like Zulu women carrying water, and their bodies beneath the shoulders rippled when they moved. They were seventeen, sixteen, and fifteen. Velvet was fourteen. Velvet had short pale hair, large, protruding teeth, a sweet smile, and a mouthful of metal."

That's how author Enid Bagnold introduces Velvet, the main character in her novel National  Velvet. Velvet was also scrawny and prone to vomiting whenever she got nervous.

So of course Elizabeth Taylor would be the first person you'd think of to play her in a movie.

I never was able to figure that one out, back when I was a horse-mad girl. I knew Taylor was regarded as a great beauty, and that even as a kid in the 1944 film she was cute as a bug. But that's just the thing. Velvet was a scarecrow.

A wonderful, beautiful character--as are all the people in National Velvet, which is not really a "kiddy" horse tale but rather a story about the complexity of family relationships, about hopes and dreams, about regrets and longings--but still, she is an odd, awkward girl quite different from her lovely sisters.

It made me cross that they turned her into a dreamy, pretty girl in the film (though I do like the film a lot, including Taylor's performance, on its own).

The original 1944 review in The New York Times describes how "little Elizabeth Taylor...plays the role of the horse-loving girl" with a "face alive with youthful spirit, her voice has the softness of sweet song and her whole manner in this picture is one of refreshing grace."

It also was vexing to see what the short, strong black- and white-spotted horse, The Pie, turned into. In the book, Velvet calls him "the piebald" and dubs him The Pie. In the movie, he's played by a rangy chestnut Thoroughbred called Pie, short for Pirate.

Horse girls generally insist on fidelity to the book when it comes to horsy particulars, so I was ready to write to the Lord High Mayor of Hollywood about this pressing matter.

It would be a long time before I'd learn that directors don't want spotted horses in movies because it's difficult to swap in other horses to play their roles. It's well nigh imposible to find exact matches, and though it's easy enough to touch up a star on a forehead, painting an entire animal is not.

As I was rereading National Velvet (which, incidentally, features one of the most excellently portrayed younger brothers in the history of literature) and noticing just how very much Bagnold did not write this book solely for children (it features a slaughterhouse, a suicide, blood, and plenty of exclamations of "hell"), I found myself lost in the rabbit hole of the Internet looking up different editions of National Velvet to see how Pie and Velvet were portrayed. It was pretty amusing. Check it out below if you feel a similar need to procrastinate.

For starters, here is the gold standard, my childhood copy: The Pie is a piebald. Velvet is simply a jockey.  The first edition of National Velvet featuring illustrations by renowned equine artist Paul Brown was published in 1949. It's a vast improvement on the cover of the 1935 first British edition of the story, which is pink with black writing and nothing else. The pink and black, to the publisher's credit, wasn't chosen because pink is a "girl color."  They are the colors Velvet chooses for her racing silks, and her conspirator, Mi, flat-out tells her she and The Pie will look horrible.

Here's the first U.S. edition of the book. Dramatic red and black, and sculptural
pose of The Pie and Velvet. Velvet doesn't quite look fourteen years old,
but the image captures her drive and The Pie's willingness.

Here's a 1960s British paperback version of the story featuring the sketches from the original,
which were done by Bagnold's daughter, the inspiration for the story.

A 1961 edition of National Velvet in classic "Little Golden Book" format. Velvet's gotten very
Western U.S. in appearance, and The Pie has morphed into a bay, thus resembling neither his piebald
book self or his chestnut movie self. Pretty, though.

A series of coloring books based on a TV version of National Velvet were produced in the 1960s. What up with the hunt attire, Velvet? Women traditionally (and the English equestrian world is nothing if not traditional) wear black or navy coats. Red is reserved for Master of Foxhounds and other hunt assistants. Though that has surely changed as more women moved into those ranks. Still, Velvet in the 1940s-1960s...well, wait a sec. Who am I to quibble over the coat color worn by a girl who went undercover as a male jockey riding in and winning the Grand National steeplechase? Oy. Never mind. But I am a bit worried about her coming off the horse in this image.  And she needs a hair net.

A 1962 picture book based on the early-60s NBC TV program loosely based on National Velvet.
When I say "loosely," I mean that book-Velvet who lived in a poor household in an English
village that was attached to a slaughterhouse run by her father and owned a rakish
piebald gelding turned into a girl living in the United States living on a sprawling
dairy farm who owned a Thoroughbred stallion.  Because life is like that.

Another 1960s version of the story. Velvet has morphed into a stylish, slender young woman
wearing an outfit I associate with all those story series about girls in British boarding
schools. The Pie happens to be black, but the highlighting could be construed as  spots,
I guess. However, they appear to be living in a far northern land where the
aurora borealis is particularly active.

1960s-era edition. Interestingly, the interior contains the beautiful Paul Brown illustrations,
but the cover features a perky, sunny, healthy Velvet with a Black-Beauty-esque version of
The Pie. I suppose the GQ gentleman trotting up with the saddle is supposed to be Mi,
former jockey turned slaughterhouse assistant who lives in a rotting stall next to the
Browns' carthorse. I don't know who the dapper fellow by the fence could possibly be.

This one is a 1961 picture-book version of the story. The Pie is at least a piebald,
but with that LL Bean version of Mi and a scrubbed-up version of Velvet's
little brother sitting a mere two feet away from the jumping horse, The Pie
must be a very, very tiny horse indeed. Velvet is also playing once
again at being Master of Foxhounds.

A 1968 paperback version of the story. Velvet appears to be swept along on some
sort of wave of ecstasy as she gazes at a glorious future with her Breck hair
blowing in the wind. Bit disturbing, those fangs, though. Is there a vampire
version of National Velvet in our future? The Pie will become The Twi (short for Twilight)? 

A 1991 paperback, with Velvet sporting freshly blow-dried locks and a Western-style shirt.
Clearly the famous braces and mouthpiece that plagued her in the book have paid off in a
nice, straight smile.  The wild-eyed Pie has transformed into his literary ancestor
Black Beauty, a calm and gentle steed who would barely bite a carrot, let alone his dear rider.

I think one of Velvet's glowing, golden-haired sisters kicked her out of this cover and took
over her spot. Black Beauty once again stands in for The Pie. He also appears to have shrunk.
Have you ever cuddled up next to a horse in this way? A horse's head is, like, nearly
as long as your torso. Maybe she is kneeling and The Pie is a mini.

This is a 2012 edition published in the UK. The horse, of course, is completely unlike
The Pie in every way, but he is exactly the kind of horse my horse-mad friends
and I drew all the time, with elegant legs and flying tail, so as an illustration I love it.
It's not at all Grand-National-realistic but never mind.

A 1999 edition. The Pie is a piebald, hooray! Velvet's still rather
too glam in a waifish way, but at least the burning intensity is there
instead of just dreaminess.

OK. I swore I was going to stop, stop, stop. Because you can find a glabillion versions of
National Velvet online. But then I saw this one. Dear God. Once again one of Velvet's
sisters has shoved her aside, and the horses appear to be running in terror from
this giant head that has suddenly materialized on their horizon.

By far the loveliest cover, in my humble opinion. It's the 1985 golden-anniversary edition,
beautifully illustrated by Ted Lewin. This amazing illustrator grew up in a household that
kept many pets, including a lion. I love the angle of The Pie jumping over the rock wall
mentioned in the book. Velvet is dressed as she was in the story, too--in her
day-to-day garb. She and her sisters were so poor that they had to take turns
wearing a coat when they went to a horse show.

Training Horses, Now and Then

Let me make it clear from the start that I am not talking about me training horses. Now, then, or ever. I am not a horse trainer, nor do I play one on TV. I just read a lot about horses, and watch the Resident Teen as she rides and works with horses, and admire the trainers who've worked with her and her horse.

But, like most people, I can tell the difference between being mean and being kind. (I often think of the quotation in Melissa Holbrook Pierson's book Dark Horses and Black Beauties regarding lack of compassion: "Whenever people say 'We mustn't be sentimental,' you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add 'We must be realistic,' they mean they are going to make money out of it.'" The cruelties inflicted on Tennessee Walking Horses come to mind.)

There's no end, of course, to the sad stories streaming through news feeds every day about animals and people who'd benefit from some compassion, but what made me dwell on horse training were some old paperbacks I picked up at a thrift store recently.

They are part of a series called "Professor Beery's Illustrated Course in Horse Training." A quick Googling on the topic doesn't provide much illumination, just a few websites that worship him as the greatest trainer ever, a real natural with horses, and other sites that reprint and sell his books.

Although there are nods to not breaking a horse's spirit, to "caressing" the horse when it minds, and to past abuse that contributes to a particular horse's nasty temperament (and the sensible reminder that the horse must obey you--a horse is a lot bigger, after all, and can really do some damage if it doesn't respect you), "Professor" Beery's techniques are pretty jarring in their harshness, involving an awful lot of trussing up horses and yanking their feet out from under them and jerking on their heads.

To wit:

"To subdue a horse properly, he should be thrown on his side to convince him of your power." This involves a lot of ropes, foot straps, and knee pads (for the horse) as well as a lot of people, plus making a great deal of noise with a bunch of frightening objects while the horse lies helplessly on the ground.

Yeah, because this is how you build trust and respect in your equine partner. That guy who looks like an organ grinder is cranking a "horse fiddle"--basically a supersized version of an old-fashioned clacker or rattler used to make noise at festivals and holidays. "It makes a deafening noise," asserts Beery cheerfully.

Teaching a horse to stand for the farrier involves strapping up his foot so it's tied below his belly, and you have to "punish him with the bridle" until he stands nicely.

"The instant the halter is on, remove the lasso from the neck, so that you will not choke him any more than is absolutely necessary."

"Work him hard while the ropes are on, compel  him to fight, and fight hard, show him that you are master, and can handle him as you please."

Got a biter? "Turn the horse loose in an enclosure...and enter the pen with a whip in your right hand and a revolver, loaded with blank cartridges, in the other. As the horse rushes toward you to bite, fire blank cartridges straight up in the air in front of his face. He will whirl and try to kick. As he whirls, hit him a hard stroke with the whip."

Gosh, our horse liked to nip, but nobody suggested we try this method to curb the habit.

Dealing with a horse who breaks straps and pulls on his halter? Just rig up a pulley around his middle and tie it to his halter and then to a post--reasonable enough.

But then, force him to spring forward to ease up on the rope by rushing at him with pans or flinging papers in his face: "have a little limber-lashed whip handy and strike him five or six sharp taps with the lash across the nose...the sudden added punishment about the body and the fright and pain caused by the whip will most certainly bring him forward."

Horse afraid of firecrackers? "Lay the horse on his side. Crack the whip all about him, and make all sorts of other racket. Take fire-crackers and fire them off all around him."

Beery also offered to sell items such as the Beery Pulley Bridle and the Beery Four-in-one Controlling Bit (which can be adjusted for "very severe" action). There are also instructions for how to make a variety of bridles to subdue the horse, such as variations on war bridles...

OUCH.

...which are prohibited by the American Quarter Horse Association at their shows under their "inhumane treatment rules" as being indicative of a "general course of dealing with horses which is unacceptable."  Apparently these bridles can be useful for dealing with emergencies, according to various sources, one of which also warns that "It can be very harsh so I do not recommend it to anyone that is too rough or relies on force too much." Which would seem to rule out "Professor" Beery...

Lest it seem that I still live in the elementary-school world of belief that horses are just big sweet Labrador Retrievers who will Forge a Bond with Your Soul (and only your soul) and am therefore too fuzzy-headed to have an opinion about horses, I will dragoon an actual horsewoman to provide Exhibit A, straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak:

Throughout the ages, many people have chosen to ignore the advice of such classical riding masters as Xenophon, who wrote The Art of Horsemanship in approximately 400 BC. Xenophon advocated a kind and fair regime for the training of horses, but this seems to have been repeatedly forgotten or ignored throughout the centuries. Horrendous practices such as hobbling or physically restraining horses, who are terrified until there is no fight left in them, have arisen.                                                                                                                             Anne Wilson, Top Horse Training Methods Explored

As for all that throwing a horse to the ground--it appears that some horsemen still bring horses to the ground, though it's now called "laying" them down, and I doubt it involves yanking their feet out from under them. An actual horse trainer (unlike moi) makes an interesting point about this process on this website, noting that the laid-down horse is enduring the tonic immobility (TI) of a downed prey animal:

On the psychological side of things, creating TI, or utilizing training methods that don’t allow an animal the opportunity to ‘find the answer’ to relieve physical and mental pressure can create a psychological state known as learned helplessness....Animals who feel they have no control over aversive situations appear passive, demotivated, and depressed....Learned helplessness will trickle over from the situation where it was created, into other areas of the animal’s existence. Although there is no current scientific evidence, could this be what explains the ‘attitude change’ in many horses who undergo being laid down? [source]

I don't know, but it's great to know that horse people are talking about these things.

Back to Beery. Interestingly, his pamphlets and methods aren't even all that original. He started publishing them in 1905. But they're all expounded in an earlier book published in 1887: The Standard Horse Book by circus proprieter and horse trainer Dennis Magner. (It's frequently reprinted but with a warning on the copyright page that "Of course, the reader will realize that many methods of breaking, training, and caring for a horse will have changed since this book was first written some time ago.")

Just another fun day at the Magner riding school.
This wouldn't make your horse distrust you. No, not at all.

"[T]his was the first experience I had of men's kindness; it was all force," laments the feisty mare Ginger in explaining her training to the placid Black Beauty in Anna Sewell's famous book, published in 1877, when such methods were routinely used (although there were plenty of horse trainers who practiced the kindness and patience that Beauty's trainers did, too).

It wasn't that long ago that throwing horses and otherwise subduing them were pretty standard techniques, and I imagine there are still many people who rely on similar shortcuts; the book Horse Breaker by Ed Bateman, Sr., which was published in 1947, relates how weaned colts and fillies were roped and "staked out" to learn to submit to a hackamore and rope around the nose and head while a cowhand "boogers" them into straining against the rope:

This method is strictly western, and often criticized as too severe, but it works for men who make their living riding horses. They know as well as you do a colt on the stake line is a forlorn and desperate animal. Entirely alone for the first time in its life, scared to death...and falling to pieces with each scare, the little fellow has a bad time of it.

Though there seems to be a bit more of a middle ground edging in, as he explains in the next section, in which the horse breaker hops aboard the colt for the first time:

There are no rules and this is no contest. The colt must realize quickly that you are master, but you must not fight it. You are up there to get its respect and confidence, not to conquer it by breaking its heart and will....For the next few days, the horse breaker intensively cultivates that hoss as a friend. No spurts, no quirt, no bit, no unwary moves. Trust a man, little feller; if he's fit to work on a cow and horse ranch, he'll never hurt you.

Bateman's book shows an appreciation for horses as individuals and horsemen as people of integrity who don't abuse them, but it still seems a pretty rough way for a horse to be indoctrinated. One caption about a filly who bolts and drags a handler notes that "Little Sister went to a severe 'schooling' immediately after, which she probably will never forget." Those quotation marks around "schooling"...makes one feel a little uneasy, wondering what's meant by that.

from Horse Breaker by Ed Bateman Sr. (Carl K. Wilson Co., 1947)

At any rate, it's balm to the soul to look at listings of horse-training books at the library and see what words abound nowadays in the titles and subtitles: understanding, gentle, humane, trust, confidence, obedient, safe, leadership, respect, friendship, reliable, accepting, compassionate communication, harmony, "Respect, Patience, and Partnership, No Fear of People or Things, No Fear of Restriction or Restraint." 

I do have a favorite bit in one of Beery's books, however. It's an item that involves only firmness and not harshness, in which the author encourages the rider to urge the horse toward an object that frightens him; while you do this, you are to "speak out commandingly" the following phrase: "Take care, look out, sir! Walk right up to it!"

I am going to try saying that in ringing tones the next time I'm hefted upon some unfortunate horse. That wouldn't embarrass the Resident Teen a bit if she were out riding with me.

For what the horse does under compulsion … is done without understanding; and there is no beauty in it either, any more than if one should whip and spur a dancer.--Xenophon

Pony Books and the Making of a Reader

Photo courtesy Newspix/Rex Features

A few months ago there was a dust-up online regarding adults who like reading YA literature.

Apparently this twisted the knickers of some critics, who muttered about the quality and (supposed) lack of depth in YA literature.

Reading the Harry Potter books, anything by John Green, and the like was suddenly a shameful thing for adults to be doing, though I guess it was OK to read chick-lit or light beach-escape reading as long as it was written with grown-ups in mind.

Far better writers than I have addressed this issue and extolled the fine writing and substance to be found not only in YA but also chapter books and picture books. I can only say that I've had a very pleasant few months indulging in the habit of reading horse books, which took turns with other novels that would be more likely to pass muster with these critics.

As a horse-crazy kid, of course, I did nothing but read horse books between the ages of 9 and 14. My local library helpfully labeled all its horse books with a little horse-head sticker on the spine, so you didn't even have to use the card catalog.

I figured I'd probably read every horse book available in our library system and most of the ones ever written for the middle-grade/young adult crowd by the time I got to high school, but there were actually herds and herds of literary oaters out there that I'd never come across, and that's not even counting the hundreds of titles that kids in England enjoyed throughout the 1900s.

Among these titles was a five-book series I stumbled upon in a vintage-items shop in late summer: The Timber Trail Riders. This series was published between 1963 and 1964, when I was still a very tiny person learning to talk, let alone read.

The adventures of the Timber Trail Riders were published by Whitman Publishing Company of Racine, Wisconsin. Whitman Publishing Company became a subsidiary of Western Publishing in 1915 (Western later published the beloved Little Golden Books). The Whitman line included many mysteries and westerns; series based on characters such as Trixie Belden, Donna Parker, and Troy Nesbit; and many books based on popular TV shows and movies such as Lassie and various Walt Disney films.

One aspect that intrigued me about these books was their obvious appeal to boys--three of the five stories featured boys as the main characters. This might not have been remarkable back in the day, but among the connoisseurs of pony books (yes, there is such a thing, and we hold our heads high), there is concern about the pinkification of the horse world--is there too much emphasis on all that is pink, glittery, and princess-y?

When the Resident Teen was a very small Resident Horse-Crazy Tot, a friend who was the mom of a little boy told me her son had rebelled at the idea of visiting some horses while they were on vacation. "Horses are girrrrl animals," he sneered, wrinkling his face in disgust. (Interestingly, in his middle teen years, this boy became a Brony.)

There was no shortage of boy-friendly horse stories when I was looking for books in the 1960s and early '70s, though. Marguerite Henry's books appealed to both boys and girls, as did the many volumes in Walter Farley's "Black Stallion" series. Most of these books had boys as the central human characters, but the horses figured so strongly in them, it wasn't off-putting to a horse-crazy girl reader.

I read Henry's books over and over, though the Black Stallion books didn't grab me--I read a few of them and then left off when my mom signed me up for the World Famous Horse Story Library book club, which brought books from authors around the world to my doorstep.

So when I sat down to read the Timber Trail Riders, I wondered if they'd have appealed to me when I was a kid, when just about all it took for me to like a book was the presence of a horse every few paragraphs.

When I finished them, I knew for sure they wouldn't have been my cup of tea.

 Not because the writing is terrible--it's not scintillating prose, but it's up to the task for a simple, unadorned, straightforward action-adventure mystery, perhaps the sort of writing for teens that would be called "hi-lo" today (high interest/low reading level).

One reason I wouldn't have liked them is the fact that they're mysteries. I hated mysteries as a child and I still don't like them. I had only one mystery book as a kid, and the only reason I read it again and again was because I knew how it ended. Something involving--wait for this--a false drawer in a desk! Unheard of!

I also wasn't, and am still not, really interested in fast-paced adventures. I couldn't have said so at the time, but the fact that as an adult one of my favorite books is The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey is a pretty good clue that this taste in reading has deep roots. (The book chronicles the long, slow recovery of the author from an obscure virus and her observations of the tiny snail that lives in a potted violet on a table by her bedside.)

My childhood obsession with horses taxed the patience of many adults--an art teacher took credit off my grade because I painted too many horses, a great-uncle ridiculed my drawings because they were of "yet another horse," and I was praised mightily when I brought home a book from the library that wasn't about horses.

(I often wonder if kids who were interested in cars, rockets, stamps, ancient Egypt, or the like were pressed to set aside their interests in this way.)

But I can say only this to teachers and parents who fear that girls' horse obsessions will limit them in life: Stop worrying. Horses carry the young reader into all kinds of amazing worlds of imagination and history and fact. And I can see now that the types of books I like now are rooted in those horsy books I indulged in as a kid, so I was actually forming reading tastes while I was steeping myself in horse lore. Jill Crewe of Ruby Ferguson's "Jill" pony books and her stories set in a small village where everybody knows each other, life turns on small hinges, and there's lots of talking and humor? Well, Jill, meet Jane Austen.

OK, So, What About the Books?

As noted, there are five titles, all published in a two-year span. I have found very little about them on the internet and absolutely nothing about the author. Or authors? Was Michael Murray a pen name for several writers? A copyright-renewal page online notes only that Murray was a hired writer. Either Murray was a very fast writer, or he was actually two or three writers.

I also wondered whether Whitman intended to continue the series. Each book's cover includes the title and a tagline featuring the main character's name: "A Mike Casey Story," "A Peggy Lewis Story," and the like. This billing makes me think they thought the series would take off and that the characters would become household names.

What they have in common is a scheme used by authors from the Brothers Grimm to Roald Dahl and J. K. Rowling: get rid of the parents, and get rid of them quick!

Fortunately for the parents of the assorted Timber Trail Riders, most of them are not stomped to death by an angry rhinoceros, blasted by an evil wizard lord, or otherwise dispatched. Typically, the kids simply get a marvelous opportunity to live away from their family for a month or two or even as long as a year and have thrilling adventures during that time. They also obtain horses or access to horses in ways that real kids can only dream of. Details below.

The Long Trail North: A Mike Casey Story

Mike Casey and Danny Hall are 13-year-old boys who help out on an old-time cattle drive set in modern times. It's all part of a nostalgic whim of an Englishman who’s bought an old cattle ranch that other people wanted to turn into a game farm. Failing to obtain the ranch (spoiler alert), the bad guys try to sabotage the cattle drive.

Little hiccups in the journey include  a near drowning, a few stampedes, a steady loss of cattle, and a hostage situation in a ghost town.

A fun surprise in this book is the appearance of a Native American boy who's also coming along as a drover. Mike speaks to him in stupid, truncated English, saying things like "We come from east, far toward rising sun.”

Little Bear plays along for a while, until he's asked if  he's ever heard of Chicago. He replies, “If you’re referring to Chicago, Illinois, I’ve been there at least half a dozen times, visiting my uncle who teaches ethnology at the university. I presume that is the Chicago you have reference to?”

The Texas Tenderfoot: A Dave Talbot Story

Dave Talbot, age 15, arrives in Chicago’s airport, dressed like a cowboy, and gets stared at a lot. Dad is off for a year working in the oil industry and Mom is deceased, so Dave's going to stay with Dad’s old pal  Colonel Dwyer who owns a big horse farm,. There he meets mysterious Lee Ann Burton, a poor little rich girl whose jet-setting parents are out of the picture.

They contend with Bo, the mean stableboy who's up to no good. You know he's Trouble with a capital T from the start: "“Bo was a husky tanned youth, with heavy features and a sullen manner. His dark brown hair had streaks of yellow, and he wore it too long, with slicked-back sides and exaggerated sideburns.”

Long hair--and dyed, no less! Clearly bad news.

Dave falls off a horse that Bo deliberately saddles improperly. Bo also lets valuable horses escape and tries to blame it on Dave, puts a burr under his saddle, and even attempts to burn down the stable. Dave ends up playing Sherlock Holmes and proving Bo's the culprit. In other news, Dad buys the brilliant horse Star Bright for Dave. There's also a show and party. The author of this book describes all the food lavishly. It will make you hungry.

The Luck of Black Diamond: A Sunny Saunders Story
Sunny Saunders is a young teen who goes off to live with her aunt and grandmother for a few weeks in Colorado. Straightaway she is witness to the rescue of a cow that gets stuck in quicksand. Soon after she is given free use of a splendid black horse named Diamond, who is getting a month off from his job as a regular lesson horse—he will be hers alone.

And then her uncle buys the horse to send home with Sunny, on the condition that she ride him and not neglect him. Which causes her to worry mightily about her magnanimous decision later on to let her friend ride the dependable horse in a show—her uncle has arrived for a surprise visit and when he sees that, he’ll hit the roof, won’t he? No, because at the last minute the other girl gets another lovely horse and all is well.

This, the third book in the series, appears to have been written deliberately to cater to the tastes of many girl readers by focusing on relationships rather than adventures (a stereotype, for sure, but it probably resonates for a lot of women who like romances). After the quicksand bout, there are no other big adventures than a snarly dog that sometimes frightens the riders as they trot by a house.

One aspect of this book that I liked was how Black Diamond is actually endowed with a lot of personality--he's got opinions and quirks. However, I didn't appreciate the stunning lack of sympathy for a girl in the story who's afraid to ride after a fall—she’s repeatedly told she's “silly.” The book is also, of course, a product of its time, which still doesn't stop you from bridling when you read that when Sunny hugs her horse and he objects, Sunny concludes, “He was not like a girl, pleased to be kissed just because some boy wanted to. His favors had to be won.”

The Mystery of the Hollywood Horse: A Peggy Lewis Story

Teenager Peggy Lewis heads off to California to stay with her Aunt Paula for a month. Her aunt finesses a job for her at the stable of the trainer of Cinder, famous TV-star horse. She soon becomes friends with the girl who’s starring in Cinder’s next movie.

There’s also a mysterious, grumpy older teen named Chuck who skulks around fretting about Cinder. They find lots of clues that point to somebody plotting to steal Cinder, and speculate a lot about it and whether or not to tell his owner for fear of being dismissed as worrywarts and fussbudgets. Guess what! Cinder gets stolen! Peggy, however, finds the horse thieves’ secret lair and spirits the horse out. The police show up and the bad guys are caught.

This story stars a girl, and has more in the way of "relationship" angst than the adventure-oriented tales even though it has more hijinks than Sunny Saunders's story, but I did grow weary of all the hand-wringing and keeping things silent. Perhaps just my frustration with mysteries showing through. Or else knowing that the darn horse would be stolen and wanting to head this off at the pass.


The Mysterious Dude: A Dave Talbot Story

Dave Talbot reappears in this book. He arrives at the California dude ranch of one of his dad’s friends. Dave and that man’s son, Ron, were childhood friends. Ron's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Maynard, have to go East because Mrs. Maynard suffers from some mysterious illness, and she will get examinations there.

Because they're gone, the ranch may have to be sold—but no! Ron and Dave will run it in their absence!

Mystery shows up in the form of a slight girl with a “pale” voice who corrects everybody and recites information like a machine. She's annoying as heck and does irritating things like take horses out of the stable in the middle of the night. But I have to say she's a weird and interesting twist on your typical horse-book character.

Unfortunately, unlike the tongue-in-cheek and fairly respectful portrayal of a Native American teenager in the series' first book, this title includes a Mexican cook who's a hot-headed, fiery South-of-the-Border stereotype straight out of central casting; she flings pots and pans and mutilated English right and left, and has a son who speaks like the mouse Speedy Gonzales from the "Bugs Bunny" cartoons. Kind of cringe-inducing.

Later on, it's revealed that the Mysterious Dude-ette has a photographic memory. Not only that, but she turns out to have witnessed a crime and is hiding out at the ranch to escape a trio of men who are aiming to snuff her out, which they attempt to do during the big parade before the rodeo.

I have to admit that by this time I was weary of action-adventure and mystery, and eager to get back to reading Molly Gloss's Falling from Horses, so I was rather racing through the books at the end. It did feel nicely subversive, however, to read books that the "no teen lit for adults" leagues would've chided me for perusing.

Good-bye, Horse

Our year of the horse has overlapped much of the Chinese Year of the Horse. Unlike that year, however, ours has, somewhat surprisingly, come to an end.

I have longed for a horse for decades, and the Resident Teen longed for one for at least a decade; finally we get one, and yet here we are, once more unhorsed. We have given Avi away, and he is off to a new life in an eastern-Washington setting, where he will surely learn new skills and find new patches of gravelly dirt in which to roll.

I know...who goes around giving away horses? (I suddenly cannot stop thinking of Jerry Seinfeld in the immortal "Pony Remark" episode: "Who wouldn't love a pony? Who wouldn't love a person that had a pony?")

Suffice it to say that the Resident Teen is temporarily putting horses on hold as she ponders what to do with her future (and that Avi is much more horse than someone like me can handle), so as Avi's not the kind of pony who should be loafing around in a pasture, it was best all around to let him go to people who could bring out the best in him.

But I always meant to write a bit more about Avi and who he is because, even though he's only 7 years old, he's already got enough material to write his own memoir, if he ever learns how to write.

Avi (full name Avram) was born May 2, 2007, on Three Chimneys Farm in Kentucky (full pedigree here). His mom is a mare named Bisbee's Prospect, who raced at Emerald Downs in Washington and won three of her six races. 

His sire is a stallion named Eddington, a champion who won six races, finished in the money in 15 of his 17 starts, and placed third in the 2004 Preakness, going on to beat the likes of Funny Cide (2003 Kentucky Derby/Preakness winner) in his last race, the 2004 Pimlico Special.

Eddington is a great-grandson of Secretariat and occupied that legendary racehorse's stall at Claiborne Farms when he was there at stud. Today he resides at a breeding farm in California. 

Thanks to this genetic heritage, Avi was blessed with stunning speed and captured a lot of attention in his workouts when he started his racing career at Emerald Downs. He won his first race there on April 24, 2010. (You can see a bit of that in an Emerald Downs "Where Are They Now?" feature here--Avram's story starts at 3:50 in the video.) 

Unfortunately, Avi had a defect common among Thoroughbred racehorses: a condition called Laryngeal Hemiplegia ("lazy flapper" or "roaring" in layman's language), in which one of the two cartilagenous flaps that make up the larynx becomes paralyzed. 

So instead of firmly snapping open and shut--open for breathing, shut when swallowing--the paralyzed flapper billows around in the horse's windpipe like a loose sail on a boat, impeding the efficiency of breathing while running at high speed. 

Not exactly a recipe for success in a racehorse, and surgery to stitch the offending flapper in place didn't work; Avi stopped and appeared to go backward in his second and final race. 

Fortunately, however, a lazy flapper doesn't prevent a horse from thriving in plenty of other equine careers. Indeed, with excellent training Avi went on to become a lovely jumper, winning ribbons at shows before he became ours. He's often described as an honest horse, one that willingly jumps without hesitating. 

The Resident Teen found him to be a lovely ride, offering enough of a challenge to her to make her a better rider and rewarding good riding with a fine performance. His new owners will surely likewise find him to be an exciting horse to work with.

She also found that the lazy flapper certainly didn't affect Avi's speed when galloping down trails (after all, when you're just out for a gallop, you're not asking the horse to fly at 40 miles per hour over a distance of a mile while beating out other horses). She vividly describes rocketing along a trail and seeing the woods streak by in a blur on either side. 

Around the barn, Avi displays an interesting personality--he can be goofy and affectionate, but he also has a curmudgeonly side. Show up to say hello, and he makes that lovely rippling nicker that is horse for "hello," but as soon as he sees you haven't got any treats, he flattens his ears back, clearly expressing the opinion, "Dang it! Stupid human." 

We called him Mr. Angry Face when he was peevish. Of course, when he was being sweet, we fawned on him and stroked his velvety nose, cooing "oh, pretty pony!" (no doubt much to his disgust).

Real horse ownership, of course, is a heck of a lot different from reading about and dreaming of owning a horse. 

There are many fine children's books (especially British ones) that include the harsh realities associated with maintaining a large, delicate, working animal, but in most stories the horse usually just "goes lame" before the big show, or has a bout of colic, which makes for a nice dramatic chapter that involves staying up with the horse all night long until it recovers. 

There is nothing wrong with such stories, mind you. But in actuality, it seems there's a whole lot more in the way of fungal skin infections, thrush in the soles of the feet, scrapes inflicted on the horse by its own silly hooves (what else other than a horse would open up a gash on its leg simply getting up awkwardly one morning?), and absurd things like a gum abscess that explodes while out riding, showering the horse's neck with blood and freaking out little children passing by.

We've all learned a great deal during the Year of the Horse. We've met wonderful people, and we've enjoyed the ride. And we're curious to see what Avi--former racehorse, jumper, and part-time therapy horse of sorts--will achieve next.

California Dreamin'...or, Chrome Sweet Chrome

California Chrome, Kentucky Derby,
courtesy Wikipedia Creative Commons

May-June was absolutely excruciating to endure when I was in my early teens.

This had zero to do with things such as school dances or exams and everything to do with the Triple Crown races.

It was the season when my equally horse-mad friend M. and I attached ourselves to one horse for the duration and counted the days til post times for the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont, and filled the time in between with scouring newspapers for articles about the horses and driving adults crazy with our speculations and frettings.

We couldn't believe our spectacular luck in seeing three Triple Crown winners emerge after a drought of 25 years: first Secretariat in 1973, then Seattle Slew in 1977, and finally Affirmed in 1978.

And now, 36 years later, California Chrome has his chance to sweep the classics, following in the hoofsteps of a dozen horses who've won the first two races, from Spectacular Bid in 1979 to I'll Have Another in 2012.

This horse I have a particular affinity for, because he shares my birthday, February 18. (We have a lot in common, actually: We both have names that start with the letter C. We both have white socks. We both like sugar, carrots, apples, and oats. We're both mammals. OK, that's about all we have in common.)

Secretariat winning Belmont by 31 lengths

I stopped following horse racing after Affirmed's sweep of the Triple Crown, once I was off to college and a career, partly due to lack of time and partly due to the lack of a television set and a newspaper subscription during my college and early working days (remember, kiddies, this was before home computers and the Internet).

Now I am the horse-racing version of the kind of parishioner our fierce pastor at my childhood church condemned, the sort that showed up only on Christmas and Easter: I drop in for the Triple Crown and am largely absent the rest of the year.

It's fun, though, to recall how the sport kept me on tenterhooks in my teens. My parents indulged this fascination as best they could, taking me to the races at Belmont Park now and then and, best of all, to Breakfast at Belmont, which allowed one entry to the track at 6 a.m. to watch horses work out. We'd wander the beautiful grounds of the park, where experts would hold chats in the saddling paddock and by an old starting gate.

And, oh, the swag! Manna from heaven to a horse-crazy girl: a satchel packed with booklets, buttons, and photos of horses, including a supersized paperback about Secretariat that I still have and a comic book about a day in the life of a racehorse.

My father, ever the mathematician, became fascinated with handicapping, so he enjoyed these jaunts, as did my grandfather, an Irish immigrant who had fond memories of seeing horses work out on the Curragh and attending races at Leopardstown outside Dublin. And M. and I wiled away many a summer afternoon drawing horses and inventing racing silks and pedigrees for them.

Next time I'm down at the stable, I'll ask the Resident Ex-Racehorse, Avi, what he thinks of California Chrome's Triple Crown chances. After all, they have a great-grandfather in common (Mr. Prospector), a great-great grandpa (Danzig), and a great-great grandma (Gold Digger). Nothing better than getting insider information straight from the horse's mouth.

A Horse's Lazy Sunday

The novel Black Beauty by Anna Sewell has probably never gone out of print since it was first published in 1877. It popped into my mind on Sunday as the Resident Teen and I watched her horse frolic on a pretty spring afternoon, reminding me of the scene in which kind cabdriver Jerry lets Beauty enjoy an afternoon in a pasture far from the busy streets of London after a short Sunday drive:

When my harness was taken off, I did not know what I should do first--whether to eat grass, or roll over on my back, or lie down and rest, or have a gallop across the  meadow out of sheer spirits at being free; and I did all by turns.

Avi is hardly the much-put-upon carriage horse that Beauty is--he's got nothing, nada, zip to complain about--but like Beauty he kicked up his heels and enjoyed all these horsy activities by turns:

"I know. I make it all look easy, don't I."

Riding Horses vs Writing Horses

I covered reams of paper with scenes like this...

When I was a girl, all I could think about was horses.

Like many horse-crazy girls, I plastered my room with horse posters, lined the shelves with horse statues, read and reread every horse book in the library, and galloped around the back yard tossing my hair ("flowing mane") and neighing (much to the irritation of the people next door).

I took riding lessons for two years, fell off once (my fault, Snowball), but managed to stick on going over jumps up to three feet high.

I also spent countless hours drawing pictures of my dream horse, a palomino Arabian stallion called Golden Stardust, who was going to found a dynasty of palomino Arabians, and writing stories about such noble steeds. Plus I was going to be a jockey.

Never mind that palominos don't necessarily breed true, meaning you won't always get golden foals with white manes and tails. Never mind that Arabians technically do not possess the "cream dilution gene" that produces a palomino and that palomino Arabians are actually genetically chestnut horses with blond manes and tails.

And never mind that I now weigh about two jockeys.

I think this blur is a horse called Udam, who finished in third place.

I thought about all this as we attended a glorious equine event the other night: the 2014 Spring National Jumper competition at the Evergreen Equestrian Park in Monroe. It was the last night of the show and featured the Grand Prix.

In Grand Prix events, horse and rider bound over (hopefully) from 10 to 16 jumps, some of which may be more than 5 feet high or more than 6 feet wide.

Most of the horses flew over the jumps. Some gave a jaunty kick in midair as they sailed over the top. One particularly flashy gray flagged his dramatic white tail as he galloped and leaped; another bore down on each jump like a terrier going after a rat.

A few riders lost stirrups and looked as if they'd fall off any second while others seemed like a natural extension of the horse. A few horses threw their heads around as if they had bees up their nostrils while others were dead serious about their jobs.

The Resident Teen's trainer, Katherine Wade-Easley, aboard
Smooth Criminal (a.k.a. Toby), who finished 6th in the event.

It was terrifying to watch the ones who seemed out of control, inspiring to watch the ones who literally took it all in stride, even if they rapped a pole here or knocked down a pole there.

I thought a lot about who and what I thought I'd be when I grew up, and how my love of horses never translated into being dead-set on acquiring one and mastering the fundamentals of horsemanship.

No doubt fear and lack of confidence had a role to play; the last time I was on a horse and it bucked, it scared the bejesus out of me and I had no "emergency drill" in place to respond. (The bucking felt like crowhopping to the sky, to me; the Resident Teen, who was watching, noted that the mare's hind feet were actually barely two inches off the ground.) Certainly lack of opportunity was a factor, too.

But as I watch the Resident Teen follow her passion for horses, I am happy to realize that I'm content with the way my own fondness for them has developed.

She has long since jettisoned the toy horses and little glass statues for the down-to-earth and practical as she pursues her sport, and shown that despite our shared love of horses, she is certainly no Mini-Me; she has grit and self-preservation skills when it comes to horses that I don't and never did.

YIKES!!!

I think it's amazing that she's not intimidated by going over huge jumps; she thinks it's amazing that I can manage a budget, a schedule, and a freelance job.

(At least I can still manage to impress in one sphere of life!)

It's been nice to discover that there are as many ways to appreciate horses as there are kinds of horses, just as you can be a train fan without being an engineer, a birder without being an ornithologist, or a patron of the arts without being in an orchestra.

I don't know why it took me half a century to realize this. After all, my dad designed F-14 Tomcats and other fighter aircraft but wasn't a pilot.

So I'm quite enjoying my role as a spectator and handmaiden to a horse and rider. The Resident Teen, when she was the Resident Preschooler, told me that when she had a stable as an adult, I could muck out the stalls. Now she even says that yes, I may even be able to keep some old bombproof horse or pensioner pony of my own.

We've come a long way. As long as my non-palomino, non-Arabian, definitely-not-stallion steed can carry two jockeys, we're good.

Hooray!