As it turns out, love can't cure everything.

Without Wonder
by Brooke James or Dale Gasque. We'll never really know, unless Dale comes out of the woodwork to claim this one as hers, which I don't see happening.
Published: 1999

So it's been nearly a month since I've touched a Thoroughbred book, and wow that month just flew right by. How's everyone feeling? A little Thoroughbred starved? I apologize for my delay in this area of the blog, because I really have no idea what took me so long to get around to this book, which is actually a pretty damn decent book. So decent I sort of fundamentally reject the idea that the series was heading in the wrong direction with this book (yes, that's right, I'm looking at you, Brooke...or Dale...or whoever you are), because had you (yes, you, Dale) stayed on with this series you probably would have made the series' transition back to racing more stable and less crazy. Besides, it never fails to piss me off when people complain about the series switching back to racing. People, Christina is 14 in this book. You want to complain about one dimensional characters in this series, you can just take that complaint and shove it because Christina is allowed to change her damn mind. And she's allowed to change her damn mind again. And AGAIN if she wants to. I personally don't care how many times she changes her mind. At least it's not yet another main character making a great decision in her tween years that she holds true to for the rest of her life, making her...what?...the most irritating, boring, cookie cutter character in the history of ever? These are characters that rarely have hobbies outside of horses. That Christina simply changes her mind is a landmark in that no one has their life mapped out for them by the age of 12.

That all said, I liked this book. Let me, like, talk about it more.

Is history repeating itself?

Christina Reese has heard the story many times--Wonder was a tiny, sickly foal no one thought was worth saving. No one but Christina's mother, Ashleigh. With Ashleigh's love and hard work, Wonder went on the win the Kentucky Derby.

Now, when Wonder's last foal is born under tragic circumstances, there's little hope for her baby colt. Only Christina can see that the colt is special, just like his mother was. But will she get a chance to prove it?

Read the Wonder's Legacy trilogy from Thoroughbred and experience the powerful bond between a determined girl and a very special colt. If you love horses, then you'll love these books!

So, you see what's happened here. People reacted badly to books 24-27, causing massive overhaul at wherever these decisions were made. By book 28 the gears shifted to racing, but so many books were already ordered between 28 and racing's re-introduction in the absolutely horrible, not to mention inexplicable, Cassidy's Secret (book 32). By that point people were besides themselves, so they overhauled the series again and now we've gone from the original tagline of "bond between determined girl and very special filly" to "bond between determined girl and very special colt." I guess the powers that be decided that imitating the golden years was their best bet, and it would have been. If they'd had sane authors. But that's neither here nor there. The point is that they're restarting the New Generation, making books 24-35 a strange twilight zone, where all the plots sort of converge to become that time that no one can decipher or really remember all that well. Hell, I read those books this year and I'm not quite sure what events happened in which book.

Anyhoo, we start out more than a year after book 35. We know this because it's something like January or February and Christina just turned 14 in December. Parker is now 16 (and he's shaving you guys; how quickly our boys grow up in this series), Melanie is now 15. Missy, the weanling from hell, is now two. Pride's Perfection is now a gelding (or possibly he isn't...you know how it goes). Cassidy and Dylan are long gone, never to be heard from again. Their absence is not even touched on, so whatever happened with them, it happened too long ago for it to matter now. The big news is that Wonder is pregnant again, because Ashleigh just really wanted another foal. Anyway, Ashleigh is acting all spacey like always and Christina just sort of writes her mother off as loopy over the prospect of a new Wonder baby, and goes on her merry way to Samantha's place for this clinic with Lars Stockholm.
Things with Lars go great, and he even hints that he'd like Christina to come train with him in Florida. Before Christina can properly blubber her way toward sort of accepting before talking to her parents about it, Ashleigh calls and saves her from this awkwardness. Only the thing is Wonder is going into early labor and no one else is at the farm to help her because Whitebrook is forever understaffed in their ongoing attempt to appear old fashioned and create unnecessary drama. So Parker drives Christina back to Whitebrook and drops her off, where she can sort of help with the delivery. The foaling takes too long, and Wonder is increasingly exhausted, but the foal is eventually born. Ashleigh has to perform mouth-to-nose resuscitation on the colt, but things turn out well. Even Wonder seems initially okay, at least well enough to be written off as tired by a clearly unprofessional vet. Although it becomes clear that things aren't alright with Wonder when she starts to refuse to drink and eat, causing Ashleigh's imminent downward spiral. Wonder is bleeding internally, and over the course of many pages she becomes increasingly worse and is put down. I go through this quickly out of necessity, but I liked how it was handled given that Wonder had to die sometime, and it seems appropriate for her to die in foaling complications given how difficult it always was for her to carry foals to term.

Only Ashleigh completely shuts down, which probably isn't the most believable situation. She's pretty much no good for the rest of the book, so Christina leads the charge in getting Star to accept a bottle and getting him a companion in the form of Nana the goat. Nana was probably the most annoying addition to the book considering she's the comic relief and you can only go so far with a goat providing comic relief before it gets tiring. Thus I am going to skip all of Nana's scenes and just settle on Christina becoming more and more wrapped up in Star to the point that she starts to slack with Sterling. Parker and Christina enter an event that goes well up until it becomes clear to Christina that Sterling is becoming exhausted in the cross country, resulting in her pulling the mare from the rest of the competition. At the event she runs into Eliza and Flash of Camp Saddlebrook fame, and Eliza tells her she's been exercising racehorses, which has been helping her balance. Even Parker has exercised racehorses, and Christina starts to think that there's something in this racing thing that might be beneficial to her. After long last, she asks Ashleigh if she can exercise some of the horses and we're treated to another "we're so happy you're going to race now!" scene while Christina has to let her parents down again that she's not that into racing. No wonder Christina has such issues with rejecting racing, what with Ashleigh and Mike blatantly stating their wishes all the time.

So, Christina starts to exercise regularly and by the time the Kentucky Derby rolls around they make a spectacle of a work with Missy and Perfection. Melanie and Christina dress up in silks and race against each other, which is one of those cutesy scenes I can completely do without. Nevertheless it's there, and even Tor manages to show up, so you know it's a big deal. Although it really isn't. Moving on, Missy runs in her maiden race and wins, giving Ashleigh and Christina ample opportunity to think back on Wonder's racing days. Christina takes the time to try to get her mom to talk about Star, but Ashleigh isn't having it. She is stone cold resolved to ignore the colt, even when it's becoming pretty damn obvious that Star is the best looking weanling on the farm. Due to Christina's diligence, he's been socialized with horses and has grown into himself. Ashleigh still refuses to even think of the colt staying with them long, and before you know it she's called up the Townsends and has arranged for Star to ship to Townsend Acres.

Christina is devastated, but Ashleigh is still emotionally wrecked over Wonder's death. The two come to the natural confrontation in the last chapter about Star that just ends in Ashleigh exclaiming that it was her fault Wonder died and every time she sees Star it's like a knife to her heart...she just can't get over it. So Christina does probably the first adult thing she's ever done and tells Ashleigh that it's okay. She can send Star away, and that's exactly what happens. Parker comes to pick Star up and they load him into the trailer and Parker carts him off, leaving Ashleigh, Mike and Christina to wallow in their separate grief.

And I LIKED it. You see, there are few times in this series where things go wrong and they can't be fixed magically by crying and hoping that things will be okay. For me, this goes all the way back to Pride's Last Race. The miraculous love-fixes-all recovery for Wonder's Pride always left me unsatisfied, because everything always turns out well for these people, like the stars are always aligned for them in the end. Princess breaks her leg twice? It's okay, she lives. Wonder's Pride has some nearly catastrophic colic episode? Love saves the day! Townsend Acres might go under? Wait, no it doesn't! For some reason! Retire Pride? Let's not do it after all! Like...please. The only thing that really hit these characters in Joanna's books was Charlie's death, and that was overdone. Karen Bentley took a little leap with killing a horse no one cared about amidst the worst span of books in the series. You could make an argument for Ashleigh's second pregnancy, but that's not even a blip on the map yet and is mostly Mary Anderson's doing, and I would have appreciated that had it not been a recycled plot. Whoever had the idea for this book had some nerve, and I appreciate that. I further like that it's done fairly well for a book of this nature.

So, those are my slightly chaotic thoughts. Also:

Brad. I am forever amused by how he's treated when he's not even doing anything remotely offensive. For instance:

Brad: "It's really too bad about the mare. She was irreplaceable."
Melanie (walking away from him, toward Christina) mouths: "What a jerk!"
Brad: "What a shame. I've never seen a Thoroughbred so small and shy. He's got dud written all over him."
Christina: "Star is not a dud!"
Mike: "Chris!"
Brad: "It's all right, Mike. I'm glad she's looking out for the little guy. He'll need it. Who knows -- maybe he'll make a nice pet. Thanks for letting me know about Wonder. My father's still in England, but I'll give him the news as soon as I can. Give Ashleigh my regards."
Mike: "I will. Thanks, Brad."

Like...he's not even sneering. Or being sarcastic. Or being rude. He's being realistic. In the next paragraph Christina admits that Brad is right about Star. I'm having trouble understanding how he's even slightly considered an antagonist at this point. As it reads, Christina and her Whitebrook people are acting like spoiled, mouthy asshats.

Then, later:

"He's obviously Wonder's boy," Brad commented, gazing at Star admiringly.
Well, Brad's sure changed his tune, Christina scoffed inwardly.

You know...his tune didn't even change all that much given that Star was all shy and premature the last time Brad saw him. Given that everyone was kind of shocked that Star grew up to be pretty impressive, Brad's statement isn't worth being a bitch over because he's thinking what everyone else is thinking, including what Christina's thinking. Seriously, the more I read these books, the more convinced I am that our protagonists are really the antagonists and Brad is merely over there amusing himself.

OKAY. I obviously really liked this book. It might have a lot to do with my desire to see some realistic tragedy handed out to these people and seeing them not rise above their problems, resulting in trophies and grins and happy whinnying. There are weak points (Ashleigh's character), but Ashleigh was always a little neurotic, so I find it hard to judge what she'd realistically do. Given all of that, it's a good New Gen read and it blows all of Karen Bentley's books, and a good portion of Joanna's LOVE SAVES ALL books out of the water.

Love triangles, Thoroughbred style! or TB #33, Racing Parker

Racing Parker
Thoroughbred #33
by Dale Gasque
Published: 1999

I don't know if I can shed much more light on Racing Parker, given that Claire did just a wonderful job the first time around. But I will try to point out a few more things in this book. And yeah, they might be totally Brad Townsend related. I'm not apologetic about this. Obviously.


These covers just don't get better, do they? This is a scene from the book, but it's taken completely out of context and makes Christina look like the wild one as Parker is left looking at her like she's lost it or something. Also, don't they both look remarkably pink?

A Reckless Decision

Christina Reese is confident that her horse, Sterling, is ready for higher jumps. But Christina's trainer, Mona, won't let her move up to training level. Christina feels as if she and Sterling are being held back unfairly.

Then Christina meets Parker Townsend. If he can handle training level, then why can't she? Maybe Christina lacks experience, but Sterling has talent to spare. They're a perfect match! How far will Christina go to prove she's as good as Parker?

I've been reading Brideshead Revisited this week, unaware until I opened up Blogger that Racing Parker is the perfect Thoroughbred companion to Evelyn Waugh. Can't you just imagine Parker graduating from his English private school, going to Oxford, and then eating strawberries and consuming champagne while smoking Turkish cigars with other wealthy Oxfordites (who may, or may not, be obsessed with stuffed animals) before running off and sleeping with those wealthy Oxfordite's dysfunctional sisters? Yes, I think you can. Or maybe it's just me.

Well, anyway. Racing Parker is the Brad/Mike/Ashleigh love triangle that never happened. Usually I absolutely hate love triangles because most of the time the main couple is obvious and the third party is just a seductive smile and a crooked finger that lures one of them into unfaithfulness or something and it goes absolutely nowhere. Jean/Logan/Scott from X-Men, Bella/Jacob/Edward from Twilight, Marian/Guy/Robin from Robin Hood...I mean, honestly. What is so enticing about this besides the fact that I am always...always...rooting for the love triangle to break up the established pair? When does this ever happen? Never, that's when. Lucky me, Thoroughbred is here to answer my cry for mercy on my little shipper heart. Unfortunately it decided to do this about 29 books too late with a different set of characters completely. Damn it.

Racing Parker was big news when it came on the scene back in 1999. Samantha and Tor reappeared, Mona is (apparently?) marginalized (finally), and Parker (previously Ross, which makes more sense in a Townsend way given the fact that almost every person I've ever met who has a trust fund is named after their mother's maiden name...it's like an illness) and Brad and Lavinia and Clay Townsend. It's like a giant family reunion where everyone squabbles at each other before some misfortune lands everyone in a hospital. So given all the returning characters, it's got to be good. Dale Gasque sort of lives up to expectations.

However, the book opens up again with Christina being all petulant about how she knows Sterling. Sterling is talented. No one understands Sterling like she does. Blah blah blah. Mona wants to keep her at novice for a while longer. The world ends. Blah blah blah. Then Parker comes onto the scene, and I've got to say I really liked Parker, which is unfortunate because I never really paid attention to him previously. He is definitely Brad Townsend's son in this book. Or, well, he's the son of Brad Townsend when Brad's busy being awesome.

Because Samantha is back in Kentucky and I guess living at Tor's old stable that now actually has a name, she's busy buying horses while Tor is busy being mysteriously absent. I do not trust that man, and I have a feeling most of the other writers don't either considering how often he's not around. At this auction, we meet Foxglove, Clay and Parker. Clay buys Foxglove for Parker, trying to get him preoccupied with something so he won't get bored and accidentally get himself kicked out of another private school again. Parker is appreciative, but considering he goes and rides a motorcycle through his school later on I don't think he's being very serious about this promise. That said, because he is just about as dashing as a fourteen-year-old boy fresh from England can be, Christina immediately starts blushing and goes tongue tied in his presence. Parker, with his dark hair and gray eyes, is just too much for her to resist.

But resist she does! Christina likes Dylan, despite still maintaining some sort of silly friend policy with him, easily allowing herself to slip away without feeling too remarkably guilty later. Despite her repeated assurances to herself that she likes Dylan, Parker keeps slipping in to whisper in her ear to the point that you have to remind yourself that Christina is twelve. Do that enough and this book starts feeling remarkably weird. Anyway, Parker has a horse now and he rides that horse like he was born to do it, and Christina is further smitten. Then Parker's asshole and devilish riding starts turning her on, so you know it's only a matter of time. Parker is succeeding fantastically in his seducer role without even having to try all that hard. Big bonus points for Parker.

Dylan, meanwhile, is losing to Parker in just about everything. During the hunt picnic, Parker beats him in their race thing. At the hunt ball, Parker gains most of the attention and cuts in on a dance between Dylan and Christina, winning himself a riding partner in Christina at some paired jumping thingamajig because Christina is too busy being flustered at falling into him to really think about what she's saying. Dylan is not thrilled about this development, but he's got to go to Ohio for a wedding and this leaves Christina free to jump with Parker at their event whatever it's called. Because Parker is reckless (which is probably why he's so blatantly winning Christina over), his attitude starts to rub off on Christina. Christina, who tends to let this crap happen to her far too much, takes after his example and starts to push Sterling again. The thing is, however, that Sterling is relishing the challenge. Perhaps Mona has been wrong all this time! (Which, at this point, is not remarkable.) Therefore at the upcoming event, Christina goes back on her form and puts herself into training level instead of novice. Everyone reacts with displeasure, but Christina sticks to her decision, blatantly uses her mother's past with Wonder in efforts to get what she wants, and succeeds.

Only then Parker has to go be reckless some more and wrecks into a cross country jump, bringing everything back to reality for Christina, who realizes how stupid she was being. Parker goes off to the hospital, Christina discovers how depressed and crazed for attention Parker is, and then confronts the Townsends about it. They react by deciding not to ship Parker off to another private school and Parker is determined to not be an asshat anymore by doing the right thing by Foxy, who is now going to live at Samantha's place while Parker heals up and works around the barn. The book ends with Dylan still in a tentative lead for Christina's twelve-year-old heart because he's been such a good guy, according to Christina. However, considering Christina finds him about as stimulating as an old stuffed animal, I doubt that's going to last long.

Points (which, yes, have mostly to do with Brad):

• Gasque helpfully informs us, through Dylan, that Samantha wouldn't want to be around racehorses as her mother died because of one. Not like this fact EVER STOPPED HER IN PRE-GASQUE HISTORY or anything.

• He seemed too self-assured to be one of the Townsend Acres grooms. ...what? Are all grooms naturally self-conscious or is this something Brad Townsend drills into them upon signing their W-4?

• Brad Townsend was one of those trainers that looked like he'd never gotten his hands dirty. Okay, I have several issues with this statement: 1) if it looks like he's never gotten his hands dirty, it's probably because he's mainly an owner. 2) Just because he's clean we're supposed to dislike him? 3) Since when is Brad clean, anyway? He was always out on horseback before Gasque had to go Handi Wipe him to death.

• He was one of Ashleigh's least liked people in the racing world. Yeah, but only in the racing world. Excuse me while I giggle at this.

• "I don't know why he's always felt so competitive with Ashleigh." Oh, please. I've got a ton of valid theories, along with the ones that involve him secretly lusting after her and hating her for it, so I think Gasque could have gone out on a limb instead of doing the literary equivalent of a helpless shrug.

• Brad had almost messed up Wonder's chances of winning the Kentucky Derby by overracing her in the weeks leading up to it. Uh, she ran three times before the Kentucky Derby. In the course of four months. I don't think it gets more normal than that.

• I have waited so many books for Brad's return and his first line in this book is "That's the way, kid!" as he pumps his fist in the air. I so disagree with this line. Blah.

• Parker is exciting and funny, but Dylan is as comfortable to be with as Rags. Christina's turmoil over the boys reaches a critical point. For all those not in the know, Rags is a stuffed animal. I don't know about anyone else, but I think when you're comparing a potential love interest to a stuffed animal, your mind has pretty much made itself up.

• Dale Gasque is a little too obsessed with adam's apples. I mean, I'm as appreciative of male-specific human anatomy as the next...person who's interested in those things...but come on. Plus, considering adam's apples pretty much only develop during puberty, these are some freakishly fast developing kids.

• One thing I love about this book is Lavinia's character. I always thought Joanna Campbell had it totally wrong when she had Lavinia exercising racehorses. I just didn't see that as even remotely plausible considering who Lavinia was. In fact, I'm dead positive it was just another way to pin unfortunate accidents on the Townsends and Lavinia was the most convenient way for those accidents to happen. Gasque makes it known that Lavinia has no respect for anyone in the lower levels of racing, including exercise riders, which I think is far more realistic in regards to how much of a bitch Lavinia is.

• That said, I don't like how she handled Brad and Mr. Townsend. It's like the two have completely reversed roles. Brad was always the one that led Clay around by the nose, with extremely brief moments of lucidity shown on Clay's part. Brad actually acting like a shamed kid at the age of 38 or something is just not right. Clay Townsend acting like he actually cares about anything besides his work...just not right.

• "What charm school did she flunk out of?" Precisely, Melanie. Lavinia really was perfect this time around.

So yeah, you know, I need to put an end note here or something. On the Track is next and then I think I'll finish up the crazy/insane adventures we have come to know as Bonnie and Julie's canine-ridden journey through horse racing scandal heaven.

Wearing tight pants and liking it is Dylan's Choice, and who are we to judge him?

Dylan's Choice
Thoroughbred #30
by Dale Gasque
Published: 1998

As we've discovered during the course of this blog, Dale Gasque is probably the best author of the New Generation. After all she's a librarian. Therefore I suppose this isn't shocking. However, just as I feel compelled to pat Gale on the back for her attempts to bring sanity to the Thoroughbred Series with her librarian sense and so forth, I still have to rip this book to shreds. Because this is what I do for fun. Let's take a look at this....


I have little to say about this cover, really, besides the fact that I always thought Christina and Dylan looked like munchkins. If you take Christina off that horse and stick her on the ground, she'd come up to about mid-shoulder on Dakota, and since we go on and on about her being tall I highly doubt that Dakota is the largest horse on the freaking earth. It is the first time in a while that a scene from the book makes it onto the cover, but that is really where the interesting points end and the dull, mundane qualities take over. If we want to nitpick, I can't help but stare at their shoes. Really, the footwear is pretty far off the mark. Also, it looks like someone has used the grass to hide the fact that horses do actually have hooves. Otherwise, you know, whatever.

Will Dylan give up riding for good?

Dylan Becker used to be one of Christina Reese's best friends. They like to do all the same things. He even loved horses as much as she did! But lately, Dylan has been spending more time playing soccer than riding his horse, Dakota. In fact, he's thinking of giving up riding entirely--only little girls like horses, he says.

Christina can't believe it. Has Dylan really outgrown his love of riding? Even worse, has he outgrown their friendship?

The summary is remarkably true to the book. Dylan, like, enjoys other things. He, you know, might want to be well rounded when he grows up. But what is Christina to do? Why can't all her friends be as two-dimensional and narrowly focused as she is? What is a poor, twelve-year-old to do?

That's basically the book. It opens up with Christina being so thrilled that she's having a perfect summer with her perfect horse and her perfect horse-loving friends. Oh, things are so perfectly perfect that this will probably be the high point of her life if Christina isn't very careful. She takes some time to remark to herself how wonderful it is that her friends like what she likes, because having friends who might force her to think outside her carefully constructed box and introduce her to the evil ways of the non-horsey world would be too shocking to fully comprehend. Therefore you see the set up: if one of her friends were to develop an interest in something else and have to juggle their time between what Christina likes and what they also like all hell could potentially break loose. ALL HELL.

That said, let's introduce everyone (again) to Chad. Dale Gasque seems to have some trouble in this department almost immediately, because Chad comes off as a very immature fifteen. He's actually twelve, which is probably the root of my problem with this book. Everyone acts like they're teenagers. Ashleigh even refers to them as teenagers. They are twelve (well, Melanie is thirteen, but you'd never know this and a couple of books ago she was referred to as twelve, so who knows), and after all that happens in this book I am absolutely convinced that Dale Gasque was writing this book with fifteen-year-old kids in mind because SINCE WHEN do twelve-year-olds have Adam's apples and broad shoulders? Is it even possible to have broad shoulders when you're twelve? Is this something twelve-year-old girls look for in twelve-year-old boys or is this just very, very disturbing to all people in general?

Getting back to the plot, Chad is this random kid that Dylan knows and he's all challenging the masculinity of all men (be they twelve or not, I'm sure) in a fifty mile radius. He's just oozing testosterone from every pore, which obviously is going to have ramifications for all involved. Instantly Dylan feels his own tween male identity threatened by the fact that Chad is on a dirt bike and he is in sissy breeches and perched on a castrated horse. Poor, poor Dylan. Then Chad merely smiles at Katie and she is smitten. So the rest of the book involves Christina being dumped in some form or fashion by her bestest friends for this dirt bike riding pseudo fifteen-year-old. You can imagine her frustration.

So because Chad is cool and Dylan wears tight pants, we have this whole dirt bike drama that continues on for many pages. Instead of going out on a horseback ride with Christina, Dylan brings Chad's evil dirt bike and carts her around on that. Christina immediately grows frustrated because she's not the one driving and demands that Dylan teach her to drive so she can cart him around. (Can you see the early trauma developing? Can you?) He teaches her and doesn't tell Chad about this because that would mean he just handed his balls to a girl, and only tweens who wear tight pants would let that happen.

As Chad becomes more and more integrated into the group (learning how to ride to a point that he can get to a river bareback so they can play some sexually frustrated game of chicken in appropriately glossed over Thoroughbred Series standards), Christina becomes more and more upset by the fact that Chad is wooing Dylan away so they can play soccer together and be involved in team sports that build character instead of dutifully doing whatever Christina demands. Chad is fucking up Christina's perfect summer, is the long and the short of it.

So while Christina just stands there and waits for Dylan to become a man and accept whatever fate she's designed for him, he becomes increasingly agitated by the fact that he is not a man (as close as a tween can come to being a man, anyway) and lets this be known in a truly comic display of fucking up repeatedly. Fucking up because he didn't want a girl to beat him in a show jumping contest? Check. Beating up his horse because the horse wouldn't jump a supposedly tricky jump? Check. Yelling "blast off!" while starting a cross country course and subsequently making his horse fall down? Check!

He's well on his way to proving himself to be completely incompetent before he forgets to put galloping boots on Dakota for the show jumping event and winds up cutting his horse up before dumping him with Christina so he can make his soccer play offs. Christina delivers some horrible ultimatum involving forcing Dylan to chose. He can only have one interest, like her, damn it! He got himself into this horrible mess of having two priorities and/or sports he likes and he'll just have to decide which is more important and focus on being driven and humorless like she is. And oh, yeah, she'll take care of Dakota when he decides to go make his own decisions and leaves for the soccer game. Christina is a slave to her one interest, after all. If it involves a horse she's there with bells on. Unless it's racing. In which case she recoils in horror and starts snapping at anyone who will listen that she likes EVENTING. Say it with her. EVENTING.

Anyway, Dylan wins his little soccer tournament and looks all down about it. Deciding between two things any normal person could do with time to spare with a freakishly demanding sort of girlfriend pushing her opinions around with flagrant disregard of anyone's true wishes is hard, after all. Eventually he decides that no, he will not play soccer next year. He will never play soccer again! Christina is happy and Dylan points out to Chad that men are, like, all over in show jumping, and Chad accepts this one line of information and shrugs with a sudden acceptance that is so unlike his character the rest of the time that Dale Gasque really rewrote the Thoroughbred anticlimax. Wonder's Champion has nothing on this book.

Oddities:

• Just to reiterate, I really cannot believe we're supposed to accept that these kids are twelve. You know how Stacey was always going through boys in The Babysitters-Club and that was supposed to be normal? This eclipses that.

• The whole swimming in the river thing? Okay, I give you this gem of a line: After ignoring her at first, he finally ducked back down so she could get off. And yes that does involve ducking between Christina's legs.

• So Dylan gets a lot of grief for liking horses, but Kevin doesn't because "horses are in his blood." You know what it could be? Perhaps Dylan is just a loser and Kevin isn't? Because I don't think kids really differentiate why it's acceptable to make fun of one kid but not the other when they are practically the same people with different names (for all we know).

• On this same note, Mike suddenly had it hard when he was a kid because he was a boy and liked horses. I do not see this happening at all. It's like someone making fun of Brad for liking horses when he was a kid. Can you see that happening? If someone made fun of Brad for any reason he'd probably file that instance away somewhere and then come back later to financially ruin said person, and he'd laugh with glee while he did it.

• This book reads like the editors wanted to see if they could market the Thoroughbred Series to boys. I can't see where this book is supposed to appeal to girls. As it is, Christina's attitude is startlingly old fashioned, and she comes off as entirely too domineering and territorial while Dylan shows some completely unflattering inclinations of throwing punches when he gets angry. Nice characteristics for our twelve-year-old heroes to have all around, right?

Well, that's Dylan's Choice. It was minorly more entertaining than the last few installments I've gone through, but mainly in a totally unintentional way. I think I've got some more adventures with Bonnie and Julie of A Horse Called Bonnie next, and then more with the New Generation with A Home for Melanie. Going on that book's cover, I've always wanted to know how Trib wound up in Central Park. I'm sure it was remarkably inefficient and for stunningly pointless reasons.

(Want more? Claire's review of Dylan's Choice is here.)

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.