A Horse Called Holiday has opinions too, and you'll damn well hear them

A Horse Called Holiday
by Frances Wilbur
Published: 1992

I can't remember if I owned this book or not, but I do remember reading it way back when it was published, so I was pretty giddy when I got my hands on it today.

"Love has no limits to the wonders it performs."

The moment Middie sees Holiday, a beautiful chestnut thoroughbred, she knows he's the horse she's been waiting for. A horse she can take to the horse show. A horse who can win a blue ribbon.

But then Middie discovers the terrible truth about Holiday: he's deaf. And very, very scared.

Middie's always taken the easy way out. But this time that won't work.

She loves Holiday. But will that love be enough?

Plot:

Meredith, or Middie, is the Caboose in her family, meaning that she was born last. Which means she was a mistake. She's all about feeling bitter about her situation, feeling down because her brother couldn't go to a private college and her sister had to share a room because she had the misfortune of existing. I guess after twelve years of being told she's her mother's "little surprise" and being called Caboose has worn her into a competitive little brat who desperately wants any and all attention she can logically demand from those around her. So you can see there's a healthy dash of sibling rivalry and angry family dynamics that keep Middie motivated throughout the book.

Middie is also horse crazy and she spends most of her time taking care of other people's horses as she saves up for her own brilliant steed. She takes lessons from some old woman called Mrs. Bailey (she's a little like Charlie Burke, if Charlie had been a woman), and gets the opportunity to exercise a chestnut thoroughbred who is magnificent and pretty and several other adjectives for the summer until his owner takes him off to give to his grandson. So Middie is understandably excited. Twelve-year-old + shiny chestnut thoroughbred = supreme happiness! right? It's like the equation that works in all of these books.

Then we've got Janet, who is Middie's sister's boyfriend's cousin who's visiting for the summer. Janet is Middie's age and rides horses and wins ribbons but is apparently scared to death of horses. Go figure. Anyway, Middie convinces Janet to come down to Mrs. Bailey's place with her to watch her ride the new horse (she specifically tells herself she's not letting Janet ride the horse...oh HELL no, there is no WAY that's happening), and because Janet is a follower by nature she seems okay with being the official tag along. She's also extremely incompetent. As in: "When somebody gets hurt, I throw up." That sort of stupid. At Mrs. Bailey's, Middie discovers that the horse, whom she names Happy Holiday temporarily, is a little crazy. But Middie is smitten and ignores Janet shrieking that the horse isn't good for her and so forth.

Now, to the horse. Holiday is a horse of many names and a long history. He used to be a racehorse called Mostly Magic when he careened off into the stands one day and injuring his leg. Then he was taken off to some canyon or whatever, where he roamed around with some horses before becoming Rusty and developed a severe hatred for ravines because he fell into one. We know about this because the text is interrupted with Holiday's occasional thoughts and musings on his past and present. It is a bit unique. I suppose. Anyway. He's also deaf, which Middie discovers by accident and then proceeds to keep secret because telling someone would mean he'd be taken away. She assumes. Turns out the owner figures out he's not a kid's horse and lets him stay there while they find a buyer for him.

When the Val Verde show comes up, Middie wants to enter Holiday, but Mrs. Bailey insists there's no way in hell, so Middie decides to enter with this other horse she's been riding, Peaches. Until the owner of Peaches decides that she'd really like to ride her instead in the owner whatever group, making it impossible for Middie to ride her. Because the show is set up for charity, all of a sudden it's okay for Middie to ride Holiday in the show, which ends badly despite Holiday showing minor glimpses of brilliance while he keeps interrupting with his memories of Brian and Darryl, former owners he let down in various ways. Middie and Holiday come pretty close to winning a few shows, but his fear of ditches pops back up and ruins everything.

Enter Mike Mitchell, heir to some fabulous thoroughbred racing farm in California. He's about two years older than Middie and is awesome. He puts down the antagonist, who has a fleeting presence in the book, and is generally the best rider ever. So because Middie knows he's awesome and is winning shows left and right, she figures she'll have Mike ride Holiday over ditches and everything will be great. Only Holiday has these memories of his former owners and acts out by trying to kill Mike. Shocked and appalled, everyone starts having second thoughts about Holiday.

Then Mike's mom offers this great "push-button" horse to Middie for free, right after Holiday's owner offers him to her for free! Stuck between two free horses, Middie initially choses the other horse before she goes and falls off of Holiday again, coming to her enlightenment that she actually doesn't want to just win tons of shows and be a winner. She wants to become a better rider, and so she decides to take Holiday instead. Then Holiday gets in a fight and winds up with blood poisoning, so they have to bond in a stall through a night before he makes his normal recovery. And Middie discovers that being the Caboose was actually a good thing because she "completes the family" or something equally sappy, so she no longer has to lust after trophies in order to feel accepted.

We end the book with a fox hunt, when some idiot girl nearly gets dragged by her horse and Middie has to jump Holiday over a ditch in order to save her. Naturally everything goes well this time, only the idiot girl is a little emotionally scarred afterward. Only we don't care because she was annoying anyway.

Oddities:

• Middie's father tells her that she has to be careful of her dark blue eyes, implying that one day she will need glasses. I had to go research this just a little bit, and besides finding out that lighter irises have a greater prevalence of macular degeneration I have no idea what Frances is talking about. I'm sure this has something to do with her being born in 1918.

• While trying to get Holiday to not cut corners, he decides to jump a five foot fence instead. Mrs. Bailey is not pleased and Middie defends the horse by scowling and insisting, "He thought I wanted him" to jump the fence. With that sort of attitude I don't see how she could possibly know what she's doing.

• Holiday refuses a ditch and tosses Middie. Janet notices the horse is sweating and shaking and insists that Middie whip him because he was disobedient in refusing. Like, as in holding the horse's head and smacking him repeatedly. She's a lovable one, isn't she?

• Mrs. Bailey drives a Packard with velvet upholstery. Again, I have to remind myself that Frances was born in 1918.

After doing a Google search on her, I found out that Frances Wilbur (who did die in 2006) leased a horse called Happy Holiday way back when and decided she had to write his story, so she came up with this book. What is more interesting is she suffered a stroke before she wrote this and had to relearn how to type in order to do it.

The book actually does live up to my happy childhood memories of it, although I don't remember Janet being so annoying. She's got all these color coordinated outfits topped with ribbons for her hair, and she's constantly bitching about how Holiday is going to hurt Middie and then she needs to go curl up somewhere because she thinks she's going to throw up. Seriously, when Middie starts to wonder what is up with this girl she's not being a bitch because everyone else has to be wondering the same thing. I certainly was.

That's all. Just one more book from my childhood revisited.

Related: Phantom Stallion, Mustang Moon

Mustang Moon
Phantom Stallion #2
by Terri Farley

I read this some time ago, so admittedly I don't remember a whole lot. However, I know a diaper is involved, so I'm sure the rest will start revealing itself to me as I go. So, let's head out.

(Just to note: I don't give a crap about these covers, so I'm not going to bother posting them in a position of prominence. Nor am I going to talk about them. Unless, of course, something seriously crazy has to be pointed out.)

When 13–year–old Samantha returns home to her family's cattle ranch in Nevada, she's worried. She moved away two years ago to recover from a bad fall off her beloved mustang, Blackie, and she's still not sure she can get back in the saddle. Her new colt doesn't seem to like her, and the other ranchers treat her like the boss's spoiled daughter, and Blackie has been missing since that fateful day.

But that's just the beginning. When Sam suddenly finds the fate of a mysterious mustang who may or may not be the missing Blackie resting in her hands, she has to learn to be a real cowgirl, ready or not. The classic theme of a girl and her horse is set against a backdrop of mustangs, tumbleweeds, and a West that's still Wild.

I don't really know what this blurb has to do with the book. It's more of a series description than anything else. And it sure as hell isn't helping me remember much about the plot. I will continue anyway, just because it must be done.

Plot:

After the whole issue of Linc Slocum trying to capture Blackie/Zanzibar/The Phantom, the horse pretty much disappears. Being obsessed, Sam is worried about the horse because he doesn't visit her anymore. Or something to that effect. Plus she's been told that she can't roam around at night anymore because that usually tends to get her knocked in the head. Usually by the Phantom, only it's totally accidental and Sam feels the burden of unfairness placed upon her bony, thirteen-year-old shoulders. Poor her.

So, one night as she's all disobeying and such, she sees another stallion trying to beat the crap out of their fence line, freaking out all the horses. This is a big, dark stallion with a gargantuan head, which she immediately names Hammerhead. He goes away, so we can then focus on the fact that suddenly all the other horses don't seem to like Ace anymore. So they make a big to do over this and stick him in a paddock with Sweetheart, who I guess likes everyone and is therefore the social outcast of the group. Then the Hammerhead steals Sweetheart...or maybe he steals Linc's horse first...well, whatever. He steals both of them and that's all that really matters.

Linc Slocum has recently purchased a new racing Appaloosa that Hammerhead takes a liking too. Once he steals her, Linc freaks out and races to catch Sam at her bus stop so he can demand that she call The Phantom down so he can kick that horse's butt. Seriously, do people really think when they make characters do these sort of wacky things that they're actually acceptable and likely to happen in real life? Who can just magically whistle and expect a wild stallion to appear in front of you with a mad person and a bus load of middle school kids staring at you? Everyone knows you can only do that in secret glades with fresh streams running through mountain snow, and only then when you have a generous amount of pixie dust on your person. Also, you have to be in Middle Earth. I mean, we all know that.

Anyway, Linc is about ready to throw a hissy fit in the middle of the road, only to realize that everyone is staring at him, so he decides to go road rage somewhere else. Convinced that The Phantom is the one behind all this horse stealing, he makes up tons of wanted posters and distributes them around town. So The Phantom has a price on his head and is in danger again, only whats her name from the BLM is in DC and I guess there's literally no one else around that can take care of this insanity other than Sam. Which she does by taking a picture of Hammerhead and thus claims the reward. Hammerhead also turns out to be an escaped endurance horse (who, I guess has the sharpest instincts ever, or is unfortunately extremely stupid) and the mares are all returned. Only Linc's Appaloosa is pregnant and he's pretty pissed about this. She's been sullied! What a little slut.

Oh, yeah, and The Phantom and Hammerhead get into a fight and The Phantom wins, but Sam has to doctor him by sticking a diaper to his leg and he's fine. It was really a very slow book.

Showdown by Tilly Bagshawe

Showdown
by Tilly Bagshawe

Look, I feel a little shitty when I have to begin a post here with an outright statement such as: "This book sucks. So hard." It's just that the fact of the matter is fairly simple. This book does suck. Hard. So much so that Monique took the time to inform me that, you know, I don't have to keep reading this drivel. I can put the book down and move on and no one will judge me because this book is bad. So bad. So bad that I'm going to share it with you.

Bobby Cameron is a cowboy through and through. One of America's most skilled horse trainers, he has inherited his father's magnificent ranch in California's Santa Ynez Valley. Now, land rich but cash poor, Bobby travels the world trying to raise money to support his beloved ranch by taking jobs breaking horses for their wealthy owners. Milly Lockwood Groves, daughter of a millionaire breeder in Newmarket, England, is determined to become a world-class jockey--but her family has other plans for her, and are forcing her to take her place in British society. But Milly's life is about to be changed forever by the arrival of the gorgeous, enigmatic cowboy Bobby Cameron. Following him to America to realize her dreams, she risks losing her innocence and her heart in the process.

To start off, I am reminded of an exchange I had about this book, here in its entirety thanks to GMail:

monique: how is the romance going? you still readin it?

mara: i am. i just got done with some weird part in Florida involving a polo party and argentine women with big breasts and no moral compass sticking their hands down the asshole hero's pants.

Glorious. However, let's start at the beginning. Because while I only read a quarter of this book, that was really too much. We open up in France, where our dashing hero, Bobby, is working with this flighty filly for some asshole French trainer who'd really just prefer it if Bobby whipped the hell out of the filly and kicked her into submission. Because that's easier, and this training thing takes too much time. Bobby is appropriately disgusted with the other trainer's behavior, but unfortunately for us he's got other things to do. Like take a shower and mull over how his father sucks. Bobby, you see, is the product of his hippie mom having had inadvisable sex with his magnate dad, resulting in all sorts of wacky behavior. His dad was old when all of this happened and now he's ancient, but the old man has some attitude left and has never once informed Bobby that he loves him. And he probably doesn't. After Bobby's mom drops him off with his dad and never returns...going to live in more communes or whatever the hell she was up to...his dad just informs little Bobby that he will be his heir and that's pretty much it. Their relationship goes only so far as to be written into the will. Bobby, I guess, is scarred by this and proceeds to act out by being a complete jackass.

Now, while he's in France and fresh from his shower up at the owner's mansion, suddenly the owner's wife -- who is all young and eager to please -- magically appears in the bathroom also and starts to pull on Bobby's conveniently placed towel like a petulant six-year-old. A petulant six-year-old that Bobby decides he'd really like to not have sex with because that would be bad before deciding to hell with that and has sex with her anyway.

For some reason we are informed that Bobby really doesn't care about the needs of others, not that this matters to this woman because I guess she was only in it for the seduction. I don't get this, because it appears she put in a lot of effort for little return, especially when her husband shows up also to tell Bobby that his father died. Not wanting to get caught, he shoves the wife into a wardrobe and locks her inside, where I suppose he leaves her to fend for herself while he packs and leaves in the helicopter right outside. He's a winner, that Bobby. They're all winners.

So then we have Milly, who is a seventeen-year-old rich girl in England. Her parents own a horse farm and she's been forbidden to ride anymore after she took a nasty fall some time ago. Milly, of course, has her antagonist close by for always convenient drama. Since I forgot her name I will call her Jessica Rabbit, because that's apparently what she looks like. Jessica Rabbit, despite having breasts that probably weigh more than her head, is a jockey. For some reason. To make matters even more irritatingly stupid, Milly's brother is also a jockey and, of course, Milly wants to be a jockey too! It's like every English elite's dream in this book, which makes absolutely no sense. So Jessica Rabbit decides to have sex repeatedly with Milly's brother in order to annoy Milly. Thus we discover that all the women in this book are whores and all the men in this book are pricks. Once thought of like that it's remarkably easy to desensitize yourself from anything else even mildly offensive.

Enter Bobby into Milly's stunningly screwed up world. Bobby is now fresh from Florida, having wanted, but was forced to avoid, buxom women trying to get into his pants. It's hard for Bobby, but when the buxom women in this book have husbands armed with mallets he's really got to think about keeping his astonishingly empty head on his shoulders, you know? He's working hard, trying to keep his father's farm from falling into bankruptcy so he can turn it into a horse farm (his dad was all cattle focused and thought people who liked horses were pussies, much to poor Bobby's irritation). So his next job is with Jessica Rabbit's father's farm, but for some reason he's staying with Milly.

Milly falls in love in about two seconds flat. Unfortunately she acts like she's her age and in love, which means she's clumsy and makes poor fashion choices. Bobby, being a guest in Milly's father's home, continues on with his I-only-think-with-my-dick ways and starts bringing home as many ditsy women to his guest room as he can. Milly is upset by this...really, any host should be...but says nothing, preferring to pine away as she suffers not being able to ride (Bobby and/or horses). Until Bobby decides to help her out in that category (with the horses, I mean) and discovers that he'd really like her too, only she's seventeen. What is our hero to do? How can he get over his self-admitted urge to commit an act of pedophilia? (His words, not mine.)

Well, apparently he gets over it. Or he gets over it in California, where the legal age is eighteen. Anyway, either she has a birthday, or even Playboy starts breaking some laws because eventually she poses for Playboy, having learned to appreciate her large breasts somewhere between where I stopped reading and the end of this book.

I guess she becomes some wonder jockey in the Quarter Horse racing world and she and Bobby have sex and fall in love, only in the most despicable way possible because she has to go act like Jessica Rabbit for a while before discovering that she's an idiot and that Bobby will probably go off and have sex with some other underage girl that's not her if she doesn't stop posing for Playboy and gets her mind back to making her man happy. Thus we come to the end.

I don't know what's more frightening. That this book exists, or that it's actually the author's second novel.

Camp Saddlebrook...a new generation heaven for riding princesses everywhere

Camp Saddlebrook
Thoroughbred #28
by Dale Gasque
Published: 1998

Wasn't it around this book that the call was sounded to officially bring back racing? For some reason I have a memory of Joanna Campbell posting a note to this book's Amazon page way back when indicating something that was supposedly important. She'd consulted Dale Gasque on this book and racing would be back in #32 so we can all rest easy because Joanna's back! Yeah...I remember something along those lines. There was also a rumor that Joanna would write super editions to cover up the "giant gap" and everyone was so excited. Oh, nostalgia.


I don't have much to say about this cover other than I find it interesting how Christina is always portrayed with brown hair when she's pretty much consistently strawberry-blond in these early books. Otherwise this cover is fine. Christina looks like the annoying twelve-year-old she is, so I guess we're good to go.

Will Christina make a new friend at camp--or a new enemy?

Christina Reese is so excited. She's going away to riding camp for three whole weeks! Christina is sure it will be a blast--until she meets Eliza.

Eliza can't stand Christina's, just because her parents own a famous racing barn. She tells all the other campers that Christina is spoiled and stuck-up. But then Christina discovers a secret Eliza has been hiding--something Eliza is desperate to keep the other riders from finding out.

Christina knows she should keep quiet. But it's hard not to tell the truth about a girl who lies....

This blurb twists the truth a little (ironically) into something akin to Eliza entrusting Christina with her horrible, horrible secret and Christina, having had enough this, is implied as wondering if she should keep the secret because she's done being nice. Honestly, the blurb is more in line with what we know about Christina already (that she's typically annoying and hates taking criticism of any kind), but unfortunately it doesn't mesh with the actual plot of the book. So...we'll just get to the plot.

Plot!

Welcome to Camp Saddlebrook, where all your dreams come true! At least, if you're a riding princess. If you're not, you're wasting your time. Seriously. Just pack up and go. Thankfully Christina and Melanie qualify, so Joe the Groom takes them to camp. Immediately Christina is met with animosity, because being taken to camp not by your parents but by one of their employees is seen as rich riding princess behavior (as if the rest of the campers somehow aren't of the same ilk). Somehow Mel gets out of this, and Christina takes the brunt of all the pissiness, generally from Eliza. Everything Christina says is construed as her being all privileged, right down to accidentally informing dear Eliza that Sterling is only four. Holy crap, the horses at Camp Saddlebrook have to be at least five, therefore rules are being bent! Eliza, being a strict rule-follower, doesn't like this at all. Christina, unable to reply to this, tries to go out of her way to be nice to Eliza because they're in the same riding group (thus living in the same room and stabled next to each other) and gets nowhere fast.

So, this book spends a lot of time on camp life at Saddlebrook. There's this detailed explanation of this point system I will not even begin to describe because it was so boring. One thing I will say: if you want to feel like you're twelve again and at camp (even if you never went to a riding camp, which I surely didn't), this is your book. The most remarkable thing about riding classes at Camp Saddlebrook is the instructors seem to actually know what they're talking about and Christina, delicate riding princess that she is, doesn't cry and mope and complain when she's criticized. In fact, she feels she's learning things and quickly becomes happy in her novice class, which...just...totally not expected.

Anyway, so camp life continues. Only then Sterling tries to eat Eliza's reins, resulting in some more dramatics. Christina attempts to right things by being extra nice and goes down to the tack store to replace said reins. At first, Eliza softens up a little, but when she discovers that Christina bought some poster of a horseback riding god (I can't remember the guy's name...he's probably real for all I know) for their room Eliza freaks out about how it must be sooo nice to buy whatever you want whenever you want to.

Then we get a little bit of screen time with Dylan, who's off in another riding group and not subject to Christina's issues all the time. Instead he's got to deal with Rachel, who is trying to throw herself at him as if doing this repeatedly will somehow gain his undying affections. (Rachel's horse is named Naughty Nymph, by the way. So Christina has her work cut out for her.) However, instead of inviting Rachel to sit next to him at the upcoming fireworks display, Dylan asks Christina instead. So yay, joy, and all of that. Only by the time she goes to the fireworks show Christina is all demoralized because Eliza is pissing her off and she feels the need to sulk by herself. This leads to her going back to the barn alone, where apparently no one else is, and discovers that Flash is colicking. In true Thoroughbred heroine form, Christina saves Flash and injures herself and thereby gains Eliza's complete trust and friendship enough to find out Eliza's horrible secret: Flash is not actually Eliza's! She, like, owns an old horse she can't jump anymore! And she can't afford to buy Flash because her dad lost his job. So Christina and Melanie go into full out buy Eliza a horse mode, convincing Melanie's father to send a band down to the farm so they can raise money for Eliza. In a matter of about four days. I seriously don't know about that, but anyway.

Christina and Melanie keep Eliza's super special secret until it becomes obvious to the world that Flash is owned by someone else when the owner shows up with a series of interested buyers. Then everyone knows and shares in Eliza's emotional journey to getting what she wants. Interestingly enough, no one ever says anything about selling Eliza's old horse, because for all we know once the old horse leaves Eliza's care he'll probably be abused and then sent to slaughter. Because only the horses owned by our fantastical Thoroughbred characters are treated well.

Anyway, so the show is a success and Dylan dances with Christina and then Dylan kisses Christina. Twice. Oh, hot twelve-year-old love. Then we discover that the show made enough money to buy Flash for Eliza, only then the head person of the camp tells them they can't use the money for Flash because the show was set up as a charity for some young riders something or another. And Melanie immediately loses it and bangs herself repeatedly against a wall. Shocked by her cousin's outburst, Christina immediately goes into we can fix anything! mode and asks if there's no way for Eliza to get a loan. Yeah, because we all need to have a lot of debt by the time we're fifteen. So Camp Saddlebrook buys Flash for Eliza and sets up a loan and Eliza will get to be an instructor next year to help pay off her new debt. Christina has fixed everything, and got the guy without doing much hard work, which means this book is over.

Oddities:

• Christina was uncomfortable with the boyfriend-girlfriend thing and didn't think of him [Dylan] that way. What? Since when?
  

• Jennifer is a size one and looks like she stepped out of a Delia's catalog. Delia's in 1998, anyway.
  

• Great. I hope I don't have to pee in the middle of the night. I only mention this because I think it's the first time our beloved main characters have mentioned bodily functions of any kind. As it turns out, this book is obsessed with bodily functions. Even those of horses! The reality...it's too much!
  

• Eliza informs Christina that she's been working with her horse, Flash, in training level this summer. Christina literally thinks to herself that "training level didn't sound too advanced" like she wasn't bitching and complaining that she wasn't moving up to training level during the whole of Sterling's Second Chance.
  

• Christina has wavy hair and Melanie has straight hair. I never once thought of Chris with wavy hair...probably because I have a feeling this is the one and only time it's ever mentioned.
  

• The kids watch a video of the 1996 Badminton Horse Trials. I can't recall quite, but is this the first mention of a date in the Thoroughbred series?
  

• Everyone is very touchy-feely in this book. They're constantly touching, whether they're sitting too close, shoving each other around, tackling someone, using someone as a cushion...and Melanie even put her foot on Eliza's butt. I guess this is kid behavior, because it all came with giggling and throwing food. It's just that it was very out of character for the Thoroughbred Series. Our characters don't have immature fun! They are serious and work hard and are rich but not! Somehow!
  

Ending this installment, I will make the point of saying this was a lot better than the other early New Generation books. There wasn't a whole lot to sit and gape at in silent astonishment, so I guess that means it's the most solid of the bunch in these early goings. Unfortunately, the constant shifts in characteristics that Christina has suffered through with each author make her seem completely unstable. Although that may be because she's just unstable in general.

Hatfields and McCoys...only of Ireland

So here's the deal. My backyard basically consists of a shitload of trees. Tons of them. And lately they've been falling down fairly randomly onto the major road behind the house. Tonight I guess one of them hit a power line, resulting in a lovely explosion and subsequent call to authorities with chainsaws. Therefore it is late, there are people traipsing around the neighborhood with chainsaws, and I'm not sleeping.

Thus, I thought it the perfect opportunity to lull myself to sleep by reading The Lady, by Anne McCaffrey. Only then it was so boring I found myself angry instead and after reading the first 25 pages, I decided to skip to the last chapter (located on page 447, so I imagine I missed quite a bit). This bored me to tears as well. So I decided to stop entirely and just write a review.

Granted, this is a review after I've read the first few chapters and last chapter of this megalithic waste of space that is called The Lady. So, sure, this probably isn't the best review to look toward for serious criticism of a book (but really, is that what we're here for?), and it sure as hell isn't a recap. Anyway.

They are the Caradynes, who for over 200 years have bred and trained horses of the finest caliber on Coernanagh. But all is not idyllic at hearth and home. Catriona, the youngest child, longs to ride her family's big jumpers and show horses. Her father Michael, recognizes her gift, but her mother hates the very idea. All is in a stalemate until Lady Selina Healy enters their lives, and provides for Catriona and her father a stunning example of how the reins of power can be held by a glorious, fearless woman.

Let it be known that I am not -- NOT -- reading any more stories involving the Irish for at least a year. That said, I will move on to what I know about this book.

Catriona, having possibly the most annoying little mary sue name to pop up in recent memory, is -- you guessed it -- perfect. She lives in a big house somewhere in Ireland and her parents, seemingly having forgotten what they really named her, call her Trina. I find this nickname unacceptable, for various reasons but mainly because they're leaving out the O and frankly if they wanted to call her Trina they just should have named her something else entirely. But I guess Katrina isn't sparkly and super Irish enough. Although had it been Katrina it probably would have been spelled Katryna because it just would have.

Anyway, so they live on this stupidly huge and popular horse farm and their main special stallion is called The Tulip and in the pages I read this mare gives birth to The Tulip's son, who is called the Tulip's Son for the rest of the book. I know this because I read the end. And he's still a foal, which means that the entirety of this book takes place over a course of a few months, and again I find this unacceptable.

So The Tulip's Son is super special and big and is basically Wonder's Champion. Whatever.

Then we discover that Catriona (Trina) can draw without realizing it...and I think right about there is where I lost it with this book. If you're talking to your mother and then turn to your paper and gasp because you realize your hand has been drawing a brush jump SOMETHING is WRONG with you. And I don't think it's because you're a super special mary sue, okay? Just to clear that up.

So Catriona's mom is all disturbed that her daughter's first memory is of her flamboyant crazy ass father-in-law and we soon discover that this woman is frigid and hates it when her husband walks around naked. This is, like, totally not what a good Catholic-raised 40-something woman who's gone through nine pregnancies and six children should have to put up with. She goes out of her way to make sure her prancing around naked husband isn't interested in sex with her at any convenient or inconvenient moment of the day, and she succeeds. I have this suspicion he just goes elsewhere, and having read reviews for the book I know I am completely right. Then she dies. Yay, frigid wife is gone and naked husband can go have sex with The Lady, who is Selina, who's all married and pissed off about it. I assume. Whatever.

I then skipped to the end, where Catriona magically suspects their horses are being terrorized simply because they're, like, galloping in a paddock. She can sense that fun galloping and terrorized galloping are different, so she jumps her pony gallantly over an iron fence (oh, such bravery) and runs down to the part of the paddock she didn't see to discover this rival family trying to either steal or seriously injure The Tulip's Son and his precious mother. Catriona basically holds off all of them...somehow, despite really doing absolutely nothing other than running around on her pony and shouting, before the calvary arrives that basically consists of her dad and two other people armed with whips. Thus the mare and foal go back to grazing because, you know, they're horses and don't really care. Then Selina decides to stay at the farm and have sex with Catriona's father despite still being married to her abusive husband because this is Ireland in 1970 and divorce just doesn't happen in Ireland in 1970. Oh, and Catriona draws a special uber perfect sketch of the Tulip because I guess he died somewhere in the four hundred pages I didn't read. I wonder if she drew it without realizing what her hands were doing? Seriously, she should get that problem checked out.

That's it. I'm not reading any more Anne McCaffrey books (well, I will not attempt to read any other Anne McCaffrey books, anyway). This should be easy as I can't get into any story involving dragons or magical lands, and this appears to be the bulk of her work. Which makes me wonder how this crazy Irish horse story fits in. Actually, no, wait. I don't wonder. I don't care. Plus the chainsaws have ceased and I'm going to bed.

Related: The Phantom Stallion, The Wild One

Monique sort of challenged me to read the entirety of the Phantom Stallion Series a while back, and I started to and will admit that I'm struggling mainly because I'm trying to read about four books at a time (in general, two of which don't even involve horses so look at me branching out!) and that is difficult, not to mention entirely unreasonable and probably a little obsessive of me. Anyway, here's the first book in Terri Farley's series:

To be blunt, the cover doesn't do a lot for me. The horse isn't a beauty, and I can't help staring at its nose because it's just so...like a cartoon? I can't pinpoint it exactly.

This horse is wild at heart

It's been two years since Blackie, the horse Sam raised from a foal, threw her in a near-fatal accident. She's been separated from her family, her ranch and the wild mustangs she loves. Now she's home again, but her beloved Blackie has been missing since the day Sam was injured.

Then, on the night she returns, a mustang comes to Sam. Is it Blackie, grown up and gone wild? Is it the legendary stallion known as the Phantom? Or could it be both?

Plots:
1. Phantom:

So this wild horse has three names, although it never gets confusing. He's "the Phantom" to mostly everyone as a wild legend, Blackie to the people at River Bend, and Zanzibar to Sam. Having more than one name would then mean he's extra special, sort of like how The Black was also Shetan, and so forth. Phantom/Blackie/Zanzibar is extra extra special, seeing how he has three names.

The story behind this guy is he was Sam's horse previously before an accident caused his escape from River Bend, where I assume he was born. Two years later he's a four-year-old stallion and apparently fantastic enough to have foals and a herd of his own already. Then comes Linc Slocum, who, despite being annoyed by wild horses in general, wants Phantom/Blackie/Zanzibar. There's a lot of general grumbling about this as he tries several different routes toward snatching the horse, none of which work. Phantom/Blackie/Zanzibar ends the book free to rear and play to his wild delight, thanks to Sam.

2. Jake & Sam:

Sam is thirteen and spunky. Jake is sixteen and part Shoshone. Slap another ten years on these kids and we would have a completely different story. Even Sam's grandmother thinks something's up, so apparently she too can see the romance covers featuring heaving bosoms and windblown hair in the future for them. Thankfully we will never see this.

Oddities:

• You know, I'm pretty puzzled over why Sam is wearing a black t-shirt, black jeans and black sneakers too and I live in a "poor man's San Francisco." So, yeah, I'm pretty confused. Unless she's wearing heels and a dress I'm at a loss as to how her outfit is the height of city fashion just because it's black.

• I am so utterly befuddled whenever Wyatt is mentioned simply as "Dad." Not "her dad" or "her father," just "Dad" as if I'm expected to be right there in Sam's head and should know him as my own father also. Sort of like how everyone refers to God. I've never seen this before. It kind of annoys me.

• Astonishing! Ace actually doesn't come rushing over to Sam because he's, like, amazing and special and loves her for no reason. Clearly I've been reading the Thoroughbred Series too much.

• It isn't at first apparent why Sam, Wyatt, and Jake go to the Willow Springs BLM place other than to criticize it and be nasty toward one of the BLM employees. After they leave we discover they were only there in the first place to show it to Sam, so why they couldn't have said that before is anyone's guess.

• I'm pretty sure I've never seen a Quarter Horse with a head like an Arabian, nor have I seen a mustang with the features of an Arabian.

• I was going along just fine with this fall/escaped horse turned feral before the backstory is revealed on the ride. The horse is two, Sam is ten or eleven, and she's riding it bareback off the ranch property with a torn up nightgown serving as the bridle. Yeah, nothing could have gone wrong there at all.

Overall, this book had a Flicka feel to it. I must say, I'm used to the general craziness and sugarcoated goop of the Thoroughbred Series, and despite some randomly placed comparisons to unicorns, princesses, moonlight and silver dust this has been a good change. Sam isn't annoying, despite how many wrong turns she takes, and the lines everyone has are snappy and realistic and sound like people are actually conversing with each other. However, I am a little thrown by the insistence of pitting an adult against a thirteen-year-old girl. This doesn't even work well in the Thoroughbred Series, but here it works even less given how Linc Slocum is so annoying and stereotypical in general. I mean, if I can't lust after him like I can Brad Townsend there is seriously nothing there to entertain me.

(Edited and reposted from Lost Canyon, a now deleted blog.)

Christina's Courage to admit her horse has faults but she'll keep her anyway is TB #27

Christina's Courage
Thoroughbred #27
by Alice Leonhardt
Published: 1998

Some weeks ago we discovered (or rediscovered, as the case may be) what Cindy's like when she has to suffer through unneeded (in her view, anyway) advice. Her reaction: act like an insufferable brat with a suicidal impulse. This time we get to see how Christina takes it, and my money is on not well.

Here Christina thought she'd jump Sterling, but halfway through I guess Sterling had something significantly terrific to inform Christina about through their telepathic link, filling Christina with the uncontrollable urge to hug her horse while attempting to look Sterling in the eye from the horse's back as they are in mid-jump. Surely this is difficult to accomplish, but naturally Christina makes it look easy. Also, Christina has skinny little legs and her jacket looks like a red, sack-like cape. Another thing that isn't at all fascinating: Christina and Sterling don't do any jumping in this book. So I don't know why it's a jumping cover...perhaps there was a mix up over at Harper Collins.

Can Christina control Sterling?

Now that she has the horse of her dreams, Christina Reese is more determined than ever to enter high-level competitions. There's only one problem -- her horse, Sterling Dream, isn't cooperating.

Christina thought she had a close bond with Sterling, but now the mare refuses to do anything Christina asks. She balks at jumping even the lowest fences! Christina doesn't know what to do. If Sterling's behavior doesn't improve, this may be the end of their riding career!

Alright, this blurb pretty much reintroduces us to the Karen Bentley of the New Generation. Things go wrong, although we casually dismiss the fact that things go wrong because the main character is a brat who pushes herself and her horses too much before they're ready, while being nasty and forlorn whenever anyone tells her to ease up, so woe is her because their riding career might be over! OVER! Only it isn't because the book has to end on a high note and therefore she'll win and her bitchiness will be justified. Christina is a twelve-year-old bitch because she knows what she's doing, and everyone else just isn't as flipping amazing as she is and they're just bringing her down! Therefore she can be completely annoying if she damn well wants to be. It's the same Karen Bentley/Cindy Era logic that makes us all want to scream.

Anyhoo, the plot:

Christina has fully recovered from her lack of confidence, deciding that since she won her first competition she and Sterling are ready for full blown training level. This means that she essentially wants to start training for the Olympics now so she can qualify for the team by the end of summer. At least that's how it reads. She's irritatingly motivated, no matter if she and her horse are no where near ready for her grand aspirations. Sterling is going to be ready if she likes it or not, and Christina's going to be her horse's slave driver, mercilessly cracking the whip whenever Sterling decides she's not prepared to go careening off into full training with a shrieking crazy person clinging to her back. It's hard times for Sterling, because meek and terrified Christina of yesteryear has been replaced with freakishly pushy Christina armed with whatever it takes to win. It's like Cindy all over again, if Cindy had ever been into jumping.

Anyway. So Christina is all adamant that she's not going to miss a damn lesson this summer because she has work to do. Ashleigh has other plans, which involve assigning a weanling to each kid at the farm because apparently this will help pick up the slack in their forever understaffed operation. Christina immediately switches to belligerent/woe is me mode, annoyed that she has to help out at the farm because she favors her riding princess responsibilities over actually being responsible. She gets assigned a frisky little foal named Missy, who is hell on four hooves. Although taken aback that her assigned foal is apparently the devil incarnate, Christina declares that nothing will deviate her from her course to super jump riding person! Nothing. That includes Missy, I assume. So I'm sure there's going to be some scene where Christina accidentally knocks Missy out of the picture for a while but eventually performs some miracle and Missy becomes well behaved because Christina deemed it so.

Enter Mona to screw up Christina's plans. She has decided that everyone sucked during their dressage test in the previous show and will be working them only on dressage for the next two weeks. Christina's immediately with the hell, this is not what I pay you for! She wants to jump, damn it! Because she has obviously forgotten that three day eventing, which she is all motivated for, includes dressage. I guess Christina mastered dressage when she was nine, so she doesn't have to worry about that anymore. On their way back to Whitebrook after Mona's huge waste of time that is her high class riding lessons, Christina tries to jump Sterling into or over (sort of?) a stream, which she has to beat her mare with a stick to accomplish. Triumph degenerates into trying not to weep when she discovers she's scared the poor horse and has therefore lost Sterling's trust (she just knows this immediately, like they communicate telepathically and has read Sterling's mind).

Just when everything seems lost, Christina discovers that everyone thinks she's crazy and needs to lighten up a little. Even Dylan thinks this! Therefore Christina can no longer like Dylan because he's all realistic and who the hell is he to tell her that Sterling's been off the track for less than two months and needs to take it slow? He doesn't realize how naturally talented Sterling is! He's just as stupid and/or mean as the rest of all those people spouting their normal, easy-to-follow logic. Christina's just going to go show them all up and convince them all how wrong they are.

So we suffer through a fight between Christina and Ashleigh (which is mainly Christina lashing out at Ashleigh for no reason other than she's feeling particularly pissy that morning), and then Sterling won't walk around in the stream even when bribed. So fresh from utterly failing, Christina tries to work with Missy and just winds up smacking her around. Then we've got another chance for Christina to complain when Mona decides that her little dressage test is going to be a novice, and then Mona uses Christina as an example of a horse resisting its rider because Christina is NOT an Olympic rider. Shocked that someone has noticed she's actually twelve and not perfect all the time, Christina is embarrassed and fights the impulse to storm off and never return.

Sensing Christina's crazy lunacy, Mona hauls her into her office and they have their discussion, where Mona tells her all those riders Christina admires worked their asses off for years before they became the riders little girls like Christina are crazy about. Christina, having somehow missed the fact that these famous riders didn't become famous in a matter of two months, gets her little wake up call that she's got years and years and more years of work to look forward to. Instant gratification, as it turns out, isn't in Christina's cards. Much to her dismay. Hoping that now that Christina has had sense smacked back into her skull, Dylan offers to help her out with dressage and Christina's all oh my gosh, a date! Only it's not, because Cassidy is there also and Sterling tries to run over Dylan. But then, after about an eternity of traveling, Cassidy's horses finally arrive and their beauty depresses Christina so she just sulks and goes home.

After discovering that all Missy wanted was to be near her dam, Miss America, Christina realizes she's a huffy jerk who's been pushing everyone too hard and is completely at fault. Then she loses her novice dressage test in admirable fashion, I'll give her that. Instead of trying to kill herself she takes her last place finish like a pro and doesn't cry, mainly because she finally figures out that Sterling just came off the track two months ago or something and can't be expected to understand everything. So they finally get the last few things right in the test and she's all overjoyed and it's the only time I like her in the whole book.

Oddities:

• Alice has no idea how to color hair with Kool-Aid. Granted, I’ve never done it (and I’m immensely happy about that fact), but I also know it doesn’t involve carefully pouring liquid Kool-Aid on your head.

• Melanie wonders if the truck driver didn’t see them on the road because the tractor trailer didn’t slow down. Mel, I think all the air horns and swerving should have made it obvious that they saw you. They kept speeding up because Alice apparently hates tractor trailer drivers.

• Melanie tells us that she’s great at making up lies for why she’s late for curfew or why she skipped school (there’s a logical reason for skipping school? I’d like to hear that one), but she doesn’t know any “late-for-lesson” lies. Oh, Mel, it’s practically the same thing. Here’s one: Trib stumbled and you fell on your ass because you’re the inexperienced one, and then Trib ran off and you had to catch him. Hey! There’s a lie I thought of and typed in a matter of seconds. What do they come up with? Sterling got a rock in her hoof and Melanie gets it wrong with: “Sterling had rocks in her head.” And this is the crafty, troublemaker of the book?

• Dressage to Christina is basically “trotting and cantering around in a bunch of circles,” which is so far opposite of her opinion in previous books that I don’t think Alice took notes on anything worthwhile from Allison’s books.

• “Dressage teaches your horse to be obedient, supple and balanced,” says Katie. Dylan agrees with: “Dressage teaches you to communicate with your horse and turn him into a better athlete.” Christina looks at her friends in horror, wondering who replaced Dylan and Katie with horse riding manual writers. (Incidentally, it appears Alice is paraphrasing Common Sense Dressage: An Illustrated Guide.)

• Melanie dares to mention that Dylan looked good in his lesson and Christina runs to mark her territory, demanding if Melanie likes Dylan. Well, does she? Does she? We ALL want to know. Melanie informs us that she likes the rugged, casual type, and that a sense of humor is important (at least, her twelve-year-old self does, because I don’t think Jazz really falls in this category). Besides, Melanie likes Kevin, who doesn’t really fall into that category either. Maybe this is because no one has a sense of humor in the Thoroughbred Series, or perhaps it’s because they’re twelve and no twelve-year-old boy would ever be described as rugged. EVER. That’s just disturbing, actually.

• I guess Melanie went from having some sort of fashion sense to a walking rainbow. At the baseball game she’s wearing purple sunglasses, a bright blue shirt and orange shorts with spiky rainbow hair.

• Dylan’s mom owns a Jeep.

• Now Dylan’s getting into this whole telling Christina the truth thing, which Christina doesn’t appreciate at all. Why is everyone against Christina? Why does everyone want her to fail? Whyyyy?!

• Ashleigh asks Christina how Missy is doing and Christina says she hasn't worked with her yet, but before her mom can reprimand her Christina launches full force into her bitchy rant about how she only does things she deems important. Why can't Ashleigh understand that? Huh? HUH? Oh yeah, and Ashleigh sucks because she doesn't take Christina's Olympics dreams seriously.
  

• Wracked with guilt from her blow up at Ashleigh, Christina decides to go train Missy. Only that ends up with her smacking the foal around, which you think she wouldn't have done given how she can't even carry a crop with Sterling.
  

• Kevin to Christina concerning Christina's recent wonkiness in front of Dylan: "I told him you were really worried about Sterling and that any criticism of how you were handling the precious princess sent you into orbit." Wow. That's spot on. This could have inspired a back cover blurb along the lines of: Christina is worried about Sterling and any criticism of how she handles the mare sends her into a rage. Then she slaps around a foal. The End.

• Christina couldn't believe her friend was so excited about a stupid rectangle. Christina's hatred of dressage jumps a few levels.
  

• Mona's competition is going to be a novice test. Christina, how do we feel about that? Novice! Christina fumed. Why aren't we doing a training-level test? Mona was treating them like babies. Ah, that's the stuff.
  

• Mona points out that Christina is stiff and Sterling is resisting, but Christina insists it's not their fault. It's the dressage's fault! Yes, that's it. It's all the fault of dressage.
  

• "You know that I love you." These authors really need to not attempt song lyrics.
  

• Oh, good, Christina says everything is her fault but then Ashleigh steps in to say it's all her fault because she hasn't been around. Not that Christina hasn't had time to bitch at her mom or anything. Naturally it can't just be that Christina made mistakes. Nope.
  

• At the party after the dressage test, Dylan tackles Christina to the ground and says, "You're not as wet as me" and then they blush because he's sprawled out on top of her and pinning her to the ground. What a perfect ending note for this book. Really.
  

Best get your camping gear for our next installment or two. Christina and the gang attend Camp Saddlebrook for the next three weeks. Enemies are made, s'mores are probably consumed amidst veiled sexual innuendo...or not. You never know.

Annoying Riding Princess Death Match! or TB #26: Sterling's Second Chance

Sterling's Second Chance
Thoroughbred #26
by Allison Estes
Published: 1998

When Joanna Campbell plunked Moe down in the Thoroughbred Series out of her real life I was okay with that. When Karen Bentley erased Cindy's less annoying personality and replaced it with her own, that really pissed me off. In The Horse of her Dreams, Allison Estes tossed Maureen Mack into the fold, and in this book Cassidy Smith moved from her home in Florida to muck up the lives of our charmingly obtuse characters. I can't help but think that as Allison wrote this book, she was thinking: "Now I will surely be Cassidy's most favorite aunt! Who else would pander to a child's ego so effectively? No one, that's who!"

So I find it curious when the authors stick real people in these books, making it incredibly easy to cyberstalk those they were so eager to please by immortalizing them in print. Although, really, that's not the issue here. It's our wonderful fictional characters and their reaction to our most recent real life implant, Cassidy, that makes the story. To the cover!


Yeah, I don't care. Gray horse, little girl, no chin strap, blah blah blah.

Does Christina have the heart of a champion?

Christina Reese is sure she and her new horse, Sterling Dream, are ready for their first competition. Then Christina is injured in a fall and loses both her nerve and her spot on the team. Someone needs to ride Sterling, or the team will be disqualified.

When beautiful, self-confident Cassidy Smith is picked to ride Sterling in the show, Christina tries to be a good sport. But it's not easy. Cassidy is claiming that both Christina and Sterling are quitters. Will Christina and her horse get the chance to prove just how wrong Cassidy is?

The thing about this blurb is that the whole second half of it never happens. I don't know how exactly this whole blurb process works -- if the blurb is written before the story or the story is written before the blurb, but it is very clear that someone wasn't in line. Cassidy Smith isn't "picked" to ride Sterling and Christina and Sterling don't set out to prove anyone wrong. Basically, the whole book is about Christina acting like a paranoid freak of nature, which brings me to the title. This thing should be called Christina's Second Chance or Sterling Gets Annoyed With Her Bipolar Rider, because Sterling's Second Chance implies that the horse was doing something wrong at the beginning of the story when really she was just behaving as any horse would when a complete lunatic is sitting on its back.

Plot:

Sterling is so great! She's been off the track for weeks and is training fantastically for her super shiny career in (E)venting, so Christina is all besides herself with glee only she is also crippled by a very annoying inability to treat the horse like anything other than Waterford crystal. Picking up on this, Sterling starts to test her limits and Christina isn't prepared for Sterling's moody shenanigans. But why would Sterling decide to test Christina's awesome magical riding ability? Isn't Sterling supposed to be Christina's uber special mare she's waited her whole twelve years for? She just does. not. get it!

So the issue is that Sterling keeps ducking out and refusing to take jumps. Mona's solution to this is relatively simple: a) carry a crop when you ride and b) hit the damn horse with the crop when it does something you don't want it to do. When Christina hears this stunningly realistic logic she immediately does our typical Thoroughbred character whining about abuse and how she promised herself she'd never hit poor Sterling with anything ever because Christina isn't an ugly backside groom with bad teeth, she is a horse riding princess! Hitting her wonder horse is beneath her! Sterling should just magically know what Christina wants, or so she thinks. It doesn't work out that way, so for the first three or four chapters of the book they basically wrestle each other in a truly stunning display of horsemanship antics that can't possibly hope to be followed. Mona gets annoyed with this and tells Christina to get off the horse. She's going to teach the mare something, and Christina's all weepy and tells Mona not to hit Sterling and Mona's all "yeah, whatever."

While Mona's off perfectly riding Sterling, Christina takes some time to feel offended, angry and instantly suspicious of our new character, Cassidy. Cassidy is perfect, and has already won at the National Horse Show, which Christina is instantly jealous of to the point that she decides Cassidy is lying. So Mona shows back up to make Christina ride Sterling again, but Christina is too busy convincing herself that Dylan and Cassidy are holding hands to pay much attention to the water jump she's supposed to be jumping which ends in disaster. Mona tells her to get off the damn horse because Christina is acting like a loon, but Christina ignores her and tries it again and fails even more miserably. She falls off the horse and actually breaks her wrist and boo hoo she's hurt for the first time ever.

Christina has to have a cast for two weeks, which is the end of the world because she can't ride. Since Christina has no other hobbies and is remarkably two-dimensional, you can imagine how awful this is for her. So it comes up that someone has to ride Sterling to keep her in training, and Mona instantly suggests Cassidy because she's just great and everyone loves her, much to Christina's agitation. Like hell that perfect girl is going to ride Christina's supposedly once perfect horse! She essentially tells Mona this and proceeds to ask everyone else she knows, and everyone else tells her they're busy because they all have lives outside of horses, leaving Christina in her two-dimensional world with no horse to ride. Only then she finds out that Dylan and Cassidy are going out to the movies together, and she hates Cassidy even more. That sort-of boyfriend stealing slut!

But never fear, Melanie is to the rescue. Despite Christina's completely annoying insistence that no one knows Sterling like she does and whatever else, she finally relents and lets Melanie groom the mare before she makes Melanie exercise her. Then there's another episode of shrieking and shooting looks at people and Sterling bolts around the paddock with Melanie clinging to her neck as Cassidy steps in to save the day for our two heroic and yet completely clueless main characters. Melanie's had it after Christina's shrieking fit and leaves, so now Christina has no one to ride her super precious persnickety mare...until she comes to the stable the next day to see Cassidy riding Sterling! Holy hell! How dare they, everyone and Sterling for letting that sort-of boyfriend stealing girl get on her back like that! Everyone is at fault except Christina, or so she thinks, as she has visions of dragging Cassidy off the horse. Cassidy, having a heightened sense of self preservation, gets off the horse and lets Christina haul Sterling back to the stable.

So, just as it's become stunningly apparent that Christina has lost it entirely, Melanie rides to the rescue again and tells Christina she has to let Cassidy ride the horse if she's going to enter this Foxwood event thingy when her cast comes off. Christina swallows her pride and calls Cassidy up, apologizes for her insane behavior, and Cassidy tells her she just can't help because she's still unpacking from moving or something incredibly made up. I don't blame her for not wanting to ride...we're dealing with an unbalanced twelve-year-old girl here and there's nothing more frightening. Dejected, Christina goes to mope with Sterling. Then Cassidy has her random change of heart and decides to ride. Just like that, everything is super fantastic again!

Only then Christina's cast comes off and she's paralyzed with fear. She just can't ride Sterling and insists that Cassidy ride in the show instead. Everyone seems to wait for her natural outburst, but when that doesn't come they know something's really up and go about secretly plotting to make Christina ride in the show. Their plot is revealed at the absolute last second, and it all works out because Cassidy wears the same size as Christina. Marvelous! So they force Christina onto the horse at the show, she rides around like she's on acid or something equally hallucinogenic, and finally has to use that crop she's been freaking out about and wins the show because she's a super riding princess and it's a given. Then Dylan kisses her on the cheek and the nervous butterflies in her stomach become joyful butterflies, but no one notices, thank God.

Oddities:

• Melanie actually asks what Cassidy means when she says one of her two horses is still a little green. Sure, Melanie is supposed to be the one who isn't as knowledgeable as everyone else, but really? No. It's not a term that's applied solely to horses. She should know what it means in general.

• The whole hang up in this book is the riding crop. If Christina had just shut up and done as asked from the get go this book wouldn't have been necessary. For as stupid and touchy as Christina assumes Sterling is, she is remarkably not stupid and touchy.

• When Christina goes down to the track to watch Melanie pony with Pirate, Ashleigh actually gets all excited and wonders aloud if Christina has finally decided to take up racing. This is just really pathetic. Yeah, Ashleigh, after she traded Wonder's last foal for a horse she can event with she'll take up racing. That's likely.

• Christina was channeling her inner Cindy in this book to a serious degree. All the hissing and glaring and attempting withering looks...she was on a roll. The only difference was she was trying to be a bitch whereas with Cindy it just came naturally.

That is all here. I'll be back with Christina's Courage next, and a few other books that involve perfect thirteen-year-old girls riding magnificent horses and fixing everyone's lives and whatnot. Good times will be had by all, I'm sure.

Want more? Monique's review of Sterling's Second Chance is here.

Joanna Campbell does teen romance in The Thoroughbred, much to my utter vexation.

The Thoroughbred
Bantam Sweet Dreams Romance #8
by Joanna Campbell
Published: 1981

Because I just can't get out of the 1980's lately, my next installment is Joanna Campbell's The Thoroughbred. This book is as old as I am (actually, it's younger by about five months), the main character's name is the Irish version of mine (which never fails to creep me out just a little bit), and I have no idea why this is called The Thoroughbred...it could have been called Pretty Black Pony for all the title has to do with the story.


As far as I could tell there is no easily attainable photo of this cover on the internet. Since I have no scanner (horrors!), here's my best reproduction of it using my super duper camera's close up application. I don't know why I bothered, really, other than this horrible need I have to document everything. I could have just said: "Imagine a blond you wearing a burgundy sweater and tweed jacket. Now imagine you wearing these items in 1981." That probably would have done the trick right there.

Maura is rich and pretty, but that means nothing when she has to compete against the boy she loves...

Things have always come easy for Maura -- good looks, good grades and a real talent for horseback riding. So when she and her friend Jill start their summer at a horse farm, Maura decides she's going to win first prize in the annual horse show.

Then Maura meets Kevin, a dark, handsome boy who rides as if he was born on a horse. Riding with Kevin is like dancing with a wonderfully graceful partner, and for the first time Maura falls in love. But Kevin wants too much from her too soon and she's scared. She needs a little breathing space.

Feeling rejected, Kevin decides to show Maura up by winning the prize that she has been working towards all summer. But Maura is determined to win, even if it means losing the first boy she's ever really loved.

This summary is absolutely too long for this book. That, or I'm so used to those stunted Thoroughbred blurbs that thorough summaries are foreign to me now. But then when I think this all I have to do is read that second paragraph again and I immediately start to make a horribly sour face right at "riding with Kevin is like..." because I really do no think so. I mean, come on. Dancing with a wonderfully graceful partner? Please.

Okay. First things first. Maura is a rich sixteen-year-old blond girl from Connecticut. She's a boarding school kid at a place called Maryvale and goes there with her best friend, Jill. She could own a horse, but chooses not to because she would only be able to ride this horse two times a week, which essentially is chalked up as abuse. Because Maura is so kind hearted she decides it's best not to own any horses, despite her earth shattering riding skills. Jill is the girl with the MG and the horse family background, who rides but doesn't really care about it, and will eventually be a very spunky whore when she grows up.

This summer Maura decides to pass up yet another opportunity to spend her summer in Europe so she can spend her time at Jill's uncle's horse farm in Danbury. There she instantly bonds with a mare called Blackfire after one ride, mainly because Maura is that finely tuned as a rider. She does everything perfectly. She is perfect. SUBLIMELY PERFECT. It is frightening. Even at the country club, she swims and dives perfectly. She tans perfectly. She looks beautiful in her white bikini...really, I think I sort of hate her. Anyway, moving on.

So, the farm is hosting this big summer show and Alex (Jill's uncle) decides that Maura is talented enough to enter the open jumping competition, which is the most fantabulous competition there is ever. Maura, being perfect, twitters about how she's just not that good and Alex is all, "shut it, you're competing in the show" and she acquiesces. Soon after this, Jill and Maura go riding around the countryside and happen upon this beautiful farm. Maura, being perfect, doesn't want to trespass, but Jill, being flawed, is all "to hell with that" and they trespass. Our typical male hero arrives to tell them they're trespassing on his daddy's farm, mocks them severely, takes some time to be grudgingly humbled/shocked that Maura is going to enter the open jumping show, and then sneers at them for good measure. Yes, it does sound like Brad Townsend has traveled back in time (although, by my calculations, Brad would be about five in 1981...not that I'm obsessed or anything), appearing here as the dark, handsome, arrogant neighbor that Maura has to clash wish because he's pompous and she's all perfect and annoying. Never fear! This guy is no Brad Townsend. This guy is Kevin DeAngelo, an incredibly horrible result of everything that's bad about Irish and Italian genes mixing. Honestly, say it with me. Kevin DeAngelo. Doesn't it make you want to scream and break something? If not, maybe it's just me. Or maybe it's my sheer hatred of the name Kevin. Or maybe it's the Irish first name with the Italian last name. Or maybe it's ALL of it. Yeah, that's probably it.

Anyway. After their clash with dear old "I wish I was Brad" Kevin, Jill is all pleased that he insulted her and Maura is damn certain she'll never be one of those many girls that fall at his feet because he has broad shoulders and tons of money. No sir. She'll die first. It's exactly like listening to Ashleigh whenever she always had to state that she never could understand why people thought Brad was attractive. At least Maura stops protesting when it becomes blatantly obvious that she wants to fall at his feet like all the others.

I don't really remember how they actually get together...it's something pretty basic, I know that much. He starts coming over to the farm where Maura is staying so he can practice on his horse, and eventually he asks her out on a ride and that morphs into other things and finally he becomes the absolute opposite of sexy snobby Brad wannabe and becomes a clingy, possessive asshole who whines too much. They decide to meet up at a pool party and he's late, so Maura finds herself talking to Bill (whom she thinks is perfect for Jill, although that will never work because their names together make me cringe), and Bill asks her out but before she can reply Kevin shows up to stake his claim like the infuriatingly insecure but painted as confident romantic hero he is, which pisses off Maura. That doesn't last for long, despite him being upset that she wasn't waiting for him at the party...like, what? Around here I was getting some really disturbing feelings that he's just waiting to morph into his final stage of creepiness...the physical abuser.

But just wait! Oh, just wait. So Kevin becomes more clingy, and Maura gets more flighty, and he eventually convinces her to come meet his folks in their palatial mansion. She agrees to this, has dinner with them all, suffers through his parents mock-threatening to kill each other (slowly, by grinding up glass and sticking it in food...nice detail, Joanna!) and then goes out on a walk with Kevin which somehow ends up in a stream with them both half soaked. She gets pissy again and decides to go dry off in the grass and he plays around in the stream by himself (further proof that I think a few bolts are loose there) then romps back up to her, completely soaked and without a shirt. Because this is sexy, I guess. She opens her eyes and is all, oh...shirtless you. And he's all yes, I am shirtless. They proceed to make out in the grass and then (yes, and then...) he tries to date rape her. I know! Totally didn't see that coming either! But then I so obviously did. So she hauls off and hits him and demands that he take her home and I'm all, good for you! But she's all weepy because she loves him and really, what?

So she avoids him for a while until she decides to go swimming. She's swimming around in the club pool and out of nowhere he surfaces in front of her. Like...this is stalking on speed or something. This girl needs a PFA immediately. So he demands that she answer his question of if she'll "go with him" or whatever. You know, she's 16. He's 18 and attends Harvard. Isn't there a better phrase we can come up with for this? Or shouldn't she be hitting him again and telling him he creeps her out instead of being all forlorn when she blurts out no and he gets all annoyed so he just climbs out of the pool and walks straight to his car like he's not dripping wet all over the place? Who does that?

Then he starts dragging this ditzy 20-year-old blonde around with him everywhere, intent on hurting Maura's fragile feelings. Maura is in a state of sheer panic about this, but starts to avoid him even more and before you know it she's determined to beat him at the show, which I guess is a healthy reaction and so the show comes along and they do their show stuff and it comes down to Maura and Kevin. Like we all knew it would. There are two jump offs, increasing the heights of perfection to proportions I didn't know existed before, until Kevin's horse comes up lame and they concede to Maura, who accepts her "hollow" victory and refuses to go to the after party because she has to go sulk alone in the stable for a while about how she beat Kevin or whatever.

In the stable, as she's grooming Blackfire, Kevin miraculously appears and they make up while using all this flowery romance language that I am so burned out on that I am now positive this was a bad reading choice after all those Nora Roberts books. Anyway, Maura decides to belittle herself a little by telling him she's sure he would have won the show had his horse not come up lame (really? what?) and he tells her he was just trying to hurt her by dragging that stupid blond twenty-year-old around, and then they decide to write to each other and get together for Thanksgiving and Christmas and then they kiss and he tells her not to tell him all these feelings that she's been having (ie, that she loves him and has decided she wants to have a boyfriend and practice the piano and ride horses before she enters college to get her degree in music so she can become some rich person's wife and spend her time arranging flowers and doing whatever it is rich wives do). Only it doesn't matter because Blackfire approves of Kevin and Maura kissing and therefore we all should pretend that whole groping and slapping incident didn't happen and approve also.

And now, quote time!

Kevin's breathing became more rapid. He pulled his lips from hers for a moment and whispered hoarsely against her cheek, "Oh, Maura, Maura, I love you." His left hand moved her back and gently touched her breast.

Maura stiffened. She wasn't ready for this. She had to stop him before he went any further.

"Kevin," she gasped, pushing his hand away, "stop...please stop."

"Maura," he rasped huskily, "I love you...I need you."

"I'm not ready! Please..."

He began kissing her again. She closed her mouth tightly and tried to turn her head away. His kiss became more forceful.

"Kevin, stop! Stop!" She brought her hands around to his bare chest, trying to push him away. But he wouldn't move.

This wasn't the Kevin she knew. What was he doing? Why wouldn't he listen to her? In desperation she slapped him soundly across the cheek.

His head jerked. His eyes snapped wide as he suddenly lifted them to look down at her frightened face.

"Let me go, Kevin!"

~

I am so utterly disoriented. Not to mention? At this point Joanna Campbell is starting to make me feel dirty and I had no idea that was possible.

I need a Thoroughbred book and their ridiculous, sun shiny plots to ease the pain.

God Almighty, We’re Goin’ to the Races: The Race

Golden Filly Series #1: The Race
by Lauraine Snelling
First Printing: 1990

And now, I have to admit, I’m on a sugar high; one big chunky Rice Crispy square, and tea for breakfast. It’s the only thing that’s going to help me get through this review. To tell you the truth, I don’t even know why I have this book. I think I got it from my grandparents. They’re very religious, so it seems like something they’d get, because hey … it has a horse on the cover and is about horses, Lei must want to read it, right? Otherwise, I can’t figure out how this book ended up on my shelf, I know I’ve read some of the author’s High Hurdle series, but never really liked the author enough to want to read everything she’s written. Maybe it’s because she’s religious, and I’m not (well, not really, I’m sort of an agnostic-atheist, if that makes any sense) and I didn’t much like God shoved in my face like these books do.

Anyway, moving on...

Ye Olde Cover

Believe it or not, I can’t find this cover anywhere. At least in decent quality, the one on Amazon.com is hideous, so I fired up me old scanner, and scanned the darned thing. And it still came out looking ugly. Bethany House Publishers, you guys get a big fat F- for cover quality, mmkay. That said, it’s a confusing little cover. Tricia hasn’t got a helmet on, the horse apparently isn’t wearing a bridle, but somehow has a bit in his mouth (what’d they do, super glue it in?) and also, Spitfire seems to be channeling Perfect Image because he’s running the wrong way. Hello, cover designer… it’s a real purty track and all, but this is America, we run horses counterclockwise. I’d think a great slogan for this would be: Race Ridin: Ur Doin It Wrong!

Ye Olde Synopsis

Tricia Evanston has loved horses as long as she can remember just like her father. He has always encouraged her love of horse racing and has been training her to compete professionally. Things are not as smooth with Tricia's mother who worries about her schoolwork and the chances of her getting hurt. Their relationship is easily strained.

Tricia has turned sixteen and her whole life is about to be turned upside down. Her father has been coughing for a long time and finally goes to the hospital. The family is devastated when they learn the diagnosis. Tricia and her older brother David try to take care of the ranch, but when some of the horses get sick, Tricia's schoolwork really suffers.

And then there's the question of her faith. How can she trust in God when He's seemingly forgotten her father?

Before her looms the big race. If only she can win.

And blah blah blah. Hey, y’know, this synopsis is pretty accurate. Maybe we don’t have to read the book after all. Am I only dreaming there? Wibble. I am sad. ☹

Ye Olde Plot
So we start our story the way a lot of horse racing books begin, with a track scene in the morning. It seems to be an almost cookie-cutter formula for the “How Horse Racing Books Shall Start™” recipe. Maybe the authors feel they need to establish that this book is All About Racing.™ So anyway, it’s morning, and Tricia is riding a two-year-old (who is of course black because god forbid any horse be a normal bay color) with her father on this old gray horse (gee, are we cribbing from Walter Farley, here, Mrs. Snelling?) and the black colt dusts the older horse because obviously he’s a wonder horse. We then see that Tricia’s dad is having a coughing fit, which is undoubtedly going to be a problem for him later on. And we also have a nice little scene with the older brother, and the mom, and the mom is apparently worried sick about the thought of her daughter riding in a race. However, big brother tells her to fuck off because this is her daughter’s dream, and all, and how dare anybody ruin the precious dreams of a teenaged girl.

Tricia then goes to put the horse away so she can get ready for school, and finds her dad coughing up blood (see, I told you that coughing is going to be a problem) and gets worried. Tricia immediately starts praying like mad. And then she gets hustled off to school with her brother while her dad practically swears on a stack of bibles that he’s going to the doctor. At school, Tricia worries herself sick, talks with her best friend, Rhonda Seabolt, and then talks to this gorgeous boy named Brad that she’d probably want to screw if he wasn’t sort of like a brother, in which case it’d be sort of like incest (but not really) because any handsome intelligent male can only really be a good friend in a non-sexual way in a book written by a Christian. Oh yeah, and she realizes that she forgot to pray again, and beats herself up over it, mentally. And then it’s lunchtime, and she hangs out with the star quarterback jock named Doug whom she does want to screw because he’s not like a brother or anything. And then she has a panic attack and starts another prayerfest. And then it’s off to home, where she finds an empty house, along with a note from her brother saying her dad’s in the hospital. And this scares her because her family is apparently super healthy, and the only times they ever go to hospital is to die. So it’s time for another prayerfest. Whoot!

But it’s Brad to the rescue, and they take care of horses, and ride together and stuff. And then big brother David shows up, and tells them that daddy dearest is pretty much a goner because he has lung cancer (I bet you my weekly allowance that daddy was a chain smoker) and Tricia just happens to be on a horse, and has a meltdown, so the poor horse has a meltdown. And then it’s another prayerfest. And then to make matters worse, now they’ve got a horse that’s coughing. Wow, that just beats the dutch, don’t it? And it means another prayerfest. And the vet comes, and gives meds, and stuff.

And then Mumsy and the brother come back, and Mumsy has a shitfit about how her daughter didn’t go to the hospital. Mumsy also seems to be something of a feminine misogynist because she says flat out that “racing thoroughbreds is a man’s job” and Tricia flips her mom off and flounces off to her room because she’s Right and her mother is Wrong, so therefore, she’s got the right to flounce. And then Mommy comes in, and pretty much falls at her daughter’s feet to beg forgivness. And Tricia begins to fall behind in her schoolwork (dun dun dun… that’s sure to come back and bite her in the ass sooner or later.)

And now they’ve got more sick horses so they stick the lot in this old barn, and Tricia’s working like a mad thing to get everything taken care of. Oh, and she flunks a chemistry quiz. Like bad. Like so bad, she’s missed all but one question. Sucks to be her. And then she has an accident in the starting gate on a green colt, and eats dirt big time.

And then her dad gets home from the hospital, and he’s not doing so hot (he’s got cancer remember) so Tricia freaks because she didn’t go see him in hospital, so she’s shocked at how he looks, and flips out like ninja at her brother. And then instead of a prayerfest, it’s a hatefest because she tells God she hates him. Gasp! And then she goes for a ride on the old gray horse in a Western saddle. And then a few days later, she rides the horse that had a blowup in the gate, and everything goes well. And she seems to have mended her differences with God, because it’s a prayerfest again. And then the whole family goes to church, bully for them. And then she has her 16th birthday, and some of the football jocks try and kiss her at lunch time, and the entire school pretty much comes in their pants for her with all the cheering and whistling, and feet stamping and chanting about her winning her races and stuff.

And then it’s dinner at a seafood restaurant, and everyone gives Tricia race-related presents, from silks to a helmet and a whip. Oh my goodness, she really needs that whip does she? Even though she’s never even lifted or used one in the preceding 113 pages of this book. Hell, maybe she thought about using one on page one, but it’s not like she needed it with her ChampionSuperSpecialWonderHorse, right? And then one of their mares foals (in late September? Holy hell, Mrs. Snelling, do you know jackshit about horse racing or what?)

And finally, it’s off to the racetrack at last where they stable the horses, and then we cut to church where Mrs. Snelling reads us the usual regurgitated lecture about how much God cares for people, and how everyone needs to read the bible to find all of life’s answers, and blah blah blah. And Tricia gets in trouble in school, and her teacher threatens a smackdown. And her parents hire someone else to ride and do morning workouts. And then it’s back to the track for a horse race, and Tricia rides the pony horse to the gate, and then somehow remains on the track close enough for her brother and friends to be there. And of course, the horse wins, and the owner offers her the ride (even though we haven’t heard if she’s even got her jockey license yet.)

Tricia and her dad then have a heart-to-heart lovefest talk with Mount Saint Helens in the distance (man, talk about a downer. I’ve been to Mount Saint Helens, and this was a good 10 something years after the mountain blew its top – it’s depressing being there because it’d dead) and there’s a whole thing about God, and how much Tricia’s dad wants to do God, and all that stuff. And then her dad has a few bad attacks of coughing, and they go to the ER a few times.

And then it’s the day of the big race, and Tricia hangs around helping take care of her horse when she by rights should be in the jockey’s room (which by the way, she never did take her jockey test apparently – you’d think it would have been big news) and she finally goes to get changed. But then she leaves the room, and hooks up with Brad before she weighs in. Now see, right here, I’m convinced that Lauraine Snelling knows jackshit about horse racing. That just would not happen. Ever. And then her ChampionSpecialSuperWonderHorse goes right to the lead, and runs and runs without her ever ever having to whip him, but then a horse comes from behind them, and the mean bad jockey is whipping his horse (clearly this other horse doesn’t run for love of the girl alone!) and there’s a photo finish, but Tricia wins, and everyone is happy. Even Mumsy because she gets to stand in the winner’s circle. Bully. Personally, I think everyone made a big fuss over a maiden win. I mean, honestly, every other horse was brand-spanking new to racing too. It’s not like Spitfire beat Ghostzapper, Big Brown, Secretariat and Smarty Jones.

Ye Olde Points of Interest

• The farm Tricia grew up on is called Runnin’ On Farm, and they have a three-quarter mile track. Now, this makes sense. A farm with a mile-long track is stupid, and insane, no matter how rich or big time the farm is. Ever seen photos of Churchill Downs from the blimp? It’s freaking huge. Think of the property taxes a farm would have to pay to have enough land for that!

• The old gray Napolean-wannabe is named Dan’l. Now, I don’t get some of the pretentious names that racehorses are often given, but what the effing hell is a name like Dan’l?

• Tricia’s best friend, Rhonda, supposedly rides gaited horses. And then later in the book, she’s going to a jumping competition. Idiot! Gaited horses is not like riding jumpers. Get your disciplines right, Mrs. Snelling!

And thus ends my review of The Race. I certainly have no intention of going back to read any of the others, made easier by the fact that I don’t have any of the other books. End of story. I guess it’s time to go torture myself with crazy stallions, and lost foals. Ugh!