If Brad Townsend taught us anything, it's that being awesome trumps actually winning.

Willow King: Race the Wind!
by Chris Platt
Published: 2000

Thanks to the faith and hard work of Katie Durham, Willow King is no longer a newborn foal with badly twisted legs. After painstaking training, the Thoroughbred colt has finally gained the strength and heart to compete in major races -- and Katie is determined to prove to the world that he's a champion

Katie is just as determined to prove that she can handle anything on horseback. Born with one leg an inch shorter than the other, she has always felt as if people were doubting her physical abilities.

If only she could become a licensed jockey. Katie knows the profession is dangerous, but she's sure she can master it. Unfortunately, her new ambition will present her with the most nerve-racking challenge of her life: riding Willow King in America's biggest race -- the Kentucky Derby.

I already decided that Chris Platt's first novel was a compounded version of the first three books of Thoroughbred, if that series had taken place in Oregon and Ashleigh had been slightly handicapped. In this novel, Chris Platt comes back to finish the job, sending Willow King to the Kentucky Derby and putting her main character, Katie, on the path to super jockey stardom.

Race the Wind! starts off at the beginning of King's three-year-old season. Jason has somehow become the assistant trainer at Willow Run Farm, and Katie is a gallop rider. There's also a new jockey thrown into the mix, Mark, who is here to teach Katie how to be a jockey and also be her competition for the jockey job on Willow King...despite her being King's owner, which you'd think would negate all competition. Honestly. Cindy, the antagonist from the beginning, is also around being spoiled and loud, as per the usual antagonist routine. However, she's also got a third cousin, Camela, who is around at the stables, but she's blind, so she spends most of her time sitting around, refusing to speak, and then, when she decides to open her mouth, she quotes her Irish grandfather. There was a lot of quoting in this book. The quotes almost outnumbered the random exclamatory sentences, which are your normal horse book staple.

Mark shows up and is dashing and gorgeous and immediately Katie is smitten. Jason? Jason who? She stares at Mark in a daze and is eager to ask him to help her with "jockey lessons" despite her insistence that no one know about her urge to be a jockey. She winds up telling Camela about her desire to jockey, and Camela has some motivational grandpa quote to give her when she's feeling less bitchy and more receptive to discourse with other humans. So she eventually asks Mark for the lessons and he's happy to provide his knowledge, although at this point he's also gotten on Camela's bad side by being a) alive and b) accidentally being stupid and saying Katie is no competition for him in front of Camela, who has convinced him that she's also deaf and mute. This, of course, means he is antagonist #2.

Katie starts her lessons, which basically is her wrestling with a crop for hours on end. Meanwhile, King has entered to race in some Portland Downs thing and comes in last because his gate misfired and Mark didn't want to push him on a nearly frozen track. Katie almost has a fit about this, and is brought back to reality by Old John, the Charlie Burke look alike, who tells her Mark was being completely sensible. After this, King is worked with his younger brother, Destiny (a spoiled, crazy colt that is naturally going to be given to Cindy, because that's logical, right?) and that goes all to hell when Destiny causes a wreck and King gets a giant gash on his shoulder. Katie hauls King back to the barn, tries to get Camela to be functional and help her, but only winds up traumatizing her. At this point, Cindy comes in to tell Katie the secrets behind Camela -- that she was in some riding accident and went blind and now is scared of horses, but wants to be around horses, which is why she's been taking her to the barn, so stop thinking she's so selfish, Katie -- and blah blah blah. Seriously, did we need this blind girl? Really?

So King misses his next race, the Jim Beam, and aims instead for the Santa Anita Derby. By this point, Katie is ready to start training in the gate, and Mark has a brilliant plan, you guys. He wants to take Destiny, who has never been gate trained, and use him to train Katie in the gate. Brilliant. Katie goes along with this, and it takes Jason to tell them they're all being idiots to get Katie to see reason. Too bad they're already in the gate. Things go reasonably well at first, but in their last run through, the horse has had enough and goes ballistic, flipping over in the gate and nearly crushing Katie. Drama ensues, the boys nearly come to blows, but everyone gets through it without dying, so it works out. Then King gets out of his stall and eats the grass that the sick horses graze on before going down to Santa Anita. By this point, Katie has started to jockey and has gotten her two test races in, so she can ride King in the Santa Anita Derby. He comes in fifth. Then he gets strangles. He gets over that and then they race him again at Portland Downs, and Mark blocks Katie and King in and they come in second. And then they go Churchill Downs and Katie, who is convinced that Mark is right -- experience does count for something -- decides to let Mark ride. Only then Mark gets hurt right before the race, and Katie rides in the Kentucky Derby. Of course she does.

It just occurs to me that I can't remember if she's 15 or 16 when all of this happens. Well, whatever. Katie rides and at the 1/8 pole her stirrup snaps off. Due to all those Wildfire episodes, I thought we were in for some catastrophe, but not Katie. Katie keeps her balance, kicks her other foot out of the stirrup and rides Willow King to second place. Without stirrups. So while they didn't win, they get most of the attention for being freakishly awesome.

Oh, and Camela has some break through and can walk around without someone helping her. Huzzah.

• At a certain point...between the injury and the strangles, I decided too much was going on in this book. How Willow King even got to the Kentucky Derby after all of that is fairly crazy (given that I'm not all too sure, in terms of graded earnings, he would have even gotten into the race), but I did like that he didn't win once in the book. It was a little amusing, actually, to see the main horse character suck that hard, but still be touted as the best horse ever.

• Nothing happens between Mark and Katie (I guess her tingling sensations ceased somewhere along the way) and Jason/Katie remains in some strange are they/aren't they friends zone.
  

• Cindy is more multidimensional than in the first book, so that's a plus.
  

• The Jim Beam Stakes didn't exist as a stakes race when this book was published. Jim Beam ended their sponsorship in 1998, so in 1999 its name changed to the Galleryfurniture.Com Stakes (yes, it's awful, and I can see why Chris Platt decided to ignore this), then in 2000 it became the Turfway Spiral Stakes. It's now called the Lane's End Stakes.
  

• Willow King runs in the 126th Kentucky Derby.

• At one point, Mark tells Katie that she can't own Willow King and be a jockey at the same time because it's a conflict of interest. She'll have to switch the ownership to her mother. Katie has a particularly horse story main character attitude about this: NO! Her mother did NOT believe in and hand raise that horse like SHE DID. Do you NOT UNDERSTAND? In the long run, she switches the ownership anyway.
  

• Willow King does not run for anyone like he runs for Katie! Although, frankly, he seemed to be doing just fine for everyone else, so I sort of think that theory is all in Katie's head.
  

It's better than the first book, and I would still read a third if Chris Platt puts out another book related to Willow King. I'm too invested now.

Willow King: There's a lot of talk about disabilities here that I almost completely ignore.

Willow King
by Chris Platt
Published: 1998

I always had the opinion that Chris Platt should have been an author on the Thoroughbred series, given that her background could have seriously helped add some realism to those plotlines. Instead, in true form for whoever was behind that series, she was put on the Ashleigh series...which never failed to confuse me. Author with jockey experience...stick her on a series that has relatively little to do with racing! Brilliant idea! It's this kind of thought process that never gets old.


The only reason I'm displaying a larger image of this cover is because of the denim outfit. I was in high school in the 1990s...I would have remembered if wearing all denim was fashionable...and I really don't think it was.

When thirteen-year-old Katie Durham learns that the owner of a neighboring Thoroughbred farm is going to destroy a newborn colt, she rushes to save him. Willow King's legs are badly twisted, but Katie fights for his life, begging for the chance to raise the foal.

Because one of her own legs is nearly an inch shorter than the other, Katie feels an immediate kinship with Willow King. Together they embark on a painstaking journey of training that becomes more harrowing than Katie ever expected. Yet, through it all, she remains determined to see this brave little colt grow into the beautiful Thoroughbred champion she knows he's meant to be.

So, I recall when this book was published. I actually remember telling Chris Platt I would read it back in 1998 (don't ask). Ten years later, I finally get around to it. Nicely done, me! The important thing is that I've at least read it, and I have every intention of reading its sequel...whatever it's called.

This book begins rather abruptly. There is no easing you into Katie's world. Instead we plunge right into the thick of it on the first page, because Willow King has already been born and his owner has decided to destroy him because his legs are crooked. As it turns out, Willow King is part of the first crop of Beau Jest, the farm's would-be-prominent stallion. Mr. Ellis, owner of the farm, isn't taking any chances with his stallion's future, and determines that the foal is a black mark on Beau Jest's remarkably small record as a producer. Katie, being a horse story main character, is not going to let this happen. Quickly, she slaps the foal with a name and rabidly defends his life. Everyone backs down when it becomes apparent the foal can nurse by himself, but Mr. Ellis still doesn't want to foal on his farm, so Katie cuts a deal with him. He can lease Katie's horse, Jester, for his daughter, Cindy, for three years. In return, Katie gets to own Willow King and pretty much singlehandedly raise him. The deal is done, King and his dam go off to Katie's property, and that's that.

So, this obviously makes Cindy our antagonist. She's a little more unpredictable than most flat antagonists in these sort of books, in that she's duplicitous and a bitch most of the time, and then will turn around and have some completely unexpected break through by admitting she's "a jerk" and then turns around again and acts like a crazed banshee for no apparent reason. This is either more in line with the reality of rich teenage girls, or Cindy is mentally unbalanced. I honestly couldn't tell. More on Cindy later.

Willow King grows up and Katie raises him with the help of Jason, our heartthrob for this book. It's worthwhile to point out now that this book has a lot of similarities to the first three Thoroughbred books. Katie is Ashleigh, King is Wonder, John is Charlie (he even has a felt hat and calls Katie "missy" more than once), Jason is Mike, Mr. Ellis is Clay Townsend. The only thing missing is a Brad Townsend. So, obviously that needed to be rectified. The major difference is that you can tell these characters aren't completely expecting some sappy fantasyland in which they can play around to their hearts content. That was sort of nice. Anyway, back to Jason. He's a year older than Katie, and she's got a crush on him like you would not believe. Because Katie has this physical disability, she figures she's totally out of Jason's league, but because Jason is basically Mike Reese, of course this is not the case. At one point she thinks he's figured out she has a crush on him, and miraculously he doesn't go tell the whole school. Only then he accidentally says he'd never be interested in a thirteen-year-old, which Katie totally is, and that results in hysterics. She avoids him for eons (in teenager time, which is like a month) and then he up and says he's moving to Oklahoma for a year. Katie is all stunned, and he moves to Oklahoma.

Willow King finally grows up, and they do this whole thing with a horse swimming pool, and honestly I think right about here there was too much technical garble. Blah blah swimming blah blah legs blah blah timers and minutes and wait, Willow King is drowning...okay, don't worry, they didn't drown the horse. Eventually Willow King's legs straighten out by themselves and Mr. Ellis has that my horse is actually good looking moment. And he tries to trade Katie back, but she stands firm, despite Cindy over there being a complete asshat with her horse.

One thing I didn't really buy was Cindy's riding ability. Let me explain. Cindy and Katie compete in the same classes, yet Katie is such a good rider she actually starts to give Cindy lessons in order to prevent Cindy from inadvertently ruining Jester. When I say Cindy is getting lessons, I'm not talking about relatively advanced, even intermediate lessons. I'm talking about beginner stuff, here. Cindy's having trouble mounting and she can't figure out diagonals. Which makes me wonder how the hell Katie and Cindy are even competing against each other in shows.

Anyway, King starts to train for races, etc. Jason comes back and he's all older and more manly and such, making Katie swoon as she watches him help break the colt to saddle. Mr. Ellis offers Katie the opportunity to train King at his farm, and she takes him up on the opportunity. John has her exercise the colt, leading to more jealousy from Cindy, resulting in completely deranged teenager antics involving Cindy trying to race King with Jester. Obviously that didn't turn out well, and that's the last we hear from Cindy for the rest of the book. Mr. Ellis grounds her and gives Jester back to Katie. For all we know, Cindy could have died.

Then we pick up a little bit of plot from Wonder's Victory. King runs in his first race and beats a two-year-old that had designs on the Kentucky Derby. The trainer of this other horse is not to be trusted, and he starts doing some crazy antics, ie. he laces King's grain with bute, causing him to be scratched when John finds the tainted grain, and then dumps moldy hay in King's stall, resulting in colic. But it doesn't matter. King is so fantastic that he still beats the other colt in the final race of the book, the big Portland Downs Futurity. Everyone is estatic, so Katie starts to babble about the Kentucky Derby before John can rain on her parade by saying you have to nominate horses for that race. You can't, like, just show up and stick it in the gate akin to the Thoroughbred series, people. Crushed, Katie decides she'll get over it and King will be great without the Derby, but then John comes back and says he nominated King anyway? Like, what? What was all that about before, John? Huh? But Katie is too thrilled to care that John killed her enthusiasm about the exact same topic about five minutes ago because OMG Kentucky Derby. Then she dances with Jason finally, because he's still there being patient and such.

• Katie tried to wriggle out of his grasp, but he held her firm, steadying her like the wild colts she had seen him tame. I had to pull this out of the book, because it's so romance novel. Just imagine if that line had been in the Thoroughbred series. I probably would have died laughing.
  

• Katie and Jan constantly call each other "friend" and "pal" and I didn't know what was up with that.

• Willow King is based on a horse called King Hark. I suppose this is him?

You know, this is a solid book. I could have lived without the evil trainer trying to fix the races, because that popped out of nowhere and added an unrealistic element to the story. Then there's the problem of Cindy. I liked her brief moment of coming close to apologizing for being a natural bitch, but the whole set up of perfect Katie giving flawed Cindy riding lessons and Cindy taking almost nothing from those lessons and still acting irresponsibly by the end just makes her too flat for my liking. It's just my opinion that if you're going to have an antagonist in a story, at least operate on the understanding that this person is also an actual human. I get so sick of this perfect protagonist who gets everything, evil antagonist who gets absolutely nothing crap sometimes.

Still, I wish Chris Platt and Mary Anderson had traded places.

Heartland: It's all high drama and angst for Amy...

Heartland 6: One Day You'll Know
Scholastic- 2001.

Ah, welcome back to another exciting episode of Days of Our Amy, who leads a very horrible life. I am going to break this review down into a few sections so I don't bore the shit out of you retelling the whole damn book.

Basic Plot Points

• Daybreak, the foal of a mare Heartland took in, is a real little bitch. But, Amy feels all bonded and shit to her so it should all work out dandy. (What about your OWN horse, Amy? Sundance? Ring a bell?) But training Daybreak gives Amy a chance to work with Ty. Yay.

• Jack Bartlett AKA Grandpa is sick and refuses to see the doctor. He collapses and ends up in hospital with pneumonia. A plot twist I did not see coming.

• Lou goes to England in search of her father and HE'S NOT THERE! Oh noes! We can't have the elusive daddy plot concluded with this book, can we? (To fill those of you in, Tim Fleming was this super awesomely cool show jumper who got badly hurt in a big show and then freaked out and abandoned his family years back. Since then, Amy's mother has died as well as Tim's old horse, Pegasus. Tim sent a letter to Lou saying he plans to visit them in a few months, but Lou has daddy issues and she just couldn't wait that long.)

• Amy's friend Matt is in love with her but she rejects him like the self-obsessed bitch she is. So, poor Matt decides to date the hottest girl in school, Ashley Grant. Who also happens to be the Anti-Amy. Good for you, Matt. Good for you.

• Daybreak also gets sick to add the the drama. At least it makes her easier to handle and she can forge a SUPER BOND with Amy.

• Christmas rolls around, Lou is home and Jack is recovering from his pneumonia. We have a merry Heartland get-together and Amy and Ty watch a recovered Daybreak frolic in the snow. Do they finally kiss? Yes... yes they do. And it is so lacking in detail I really need to remind myself the intended readers of this series are 12 not 24. Bleh.

Points of Interest

• Don't they have the freaking internet in 2001? Can't Lou just e-mail her father instead of sending letters? WTF, people. Or phones. I hear those work well.

• At one point, Amy asks if they have Thanksgiving in England. Yeah, sure Amy. Along with the pilgrims and Native Americans too.

• Wow, Daybreak is special. She can buck discreetly. Ok... Lauren Brooke really tried too hard to work in the reading list words here me thinks.

• Lou is such a bitch. I can see where Amy gets it from. Going away when her Grandfather is sick? Selfish much? The old geezer could have pegged and then Lou would have been feeling all guilty about it for the rest of her life. Ask Amy about guilt, Lou. Seriously.

As a side note, Ty is sort of hot on the cover of this book. He could almost be my Brad. It's a pity he's such a vapid nancy boy.

Alrighty, onward to book 7. I might backtrack at some stage and review 3-5. I might not.

That Bonnie could never be trusted.

The Betrayal of Bonnie
by Barbara van Tuyl
Published: 1975

My friends, we have reached the end for Bonnie and Julie. I know it's hard to accept, but in time I feel we'll all be able to move on and lead fulfilling lives.

Racing Luck

Bonnie just had to win the Marquesa Stakes and make her racing comeback. Everyone said she was good enough to do it. And it would mean everything to Bonnie's owner, Julie Jefferson, lying in a hospital bed after a cruel accident at the track. Yet Bonnie's return to her remarkable winning form did not end the run of bad luck for Julie and her trainer Monty Everett. For Bonnie was showing up positive in the track tests for drugs, and that meant trouble with a capital T! After all, what good was winning if you were accused of cheating and barred from racing?

But who would dope Bonnie? And how could the Deepwater crew catch the culprit and put Monty and Bonnie back in racing again...?

Well, I am remarkably less enthused about this installment. I think it's possibly because it's finally gotten on my last nerve that everyone loves Julie Jefferson to the point of worshiping at her feet. Also, Julie pulls a bit of a Cindy McLean in this book, and as we all know that's enough to set me on edge. Give me another seriously injured girl who won't shut up about winning races/seeing races/assisting the super special horse that needs her sublime presence and won't listen to medical advice to the point that she finds herself half-paralyzed and sprawled on a hospital floor...and I don't know what I will do. Probably start weeping as I hold the book to an open flame. Yeah...something melodramatic like that.

So, as we all know from several previous installments, Bonnie is the best racing filly that ever was. Julie is the most loved girl in horse racing, if not the world. Bonnie, however, has suffered some horrible luck and as a result got injured, suffered through some crazy breeding adventure, gave birth to twins, and is now back on the track looking at a come back. Everyone is thrilled except for Monty, who is simply cautiously optimistic. Monty is awesome, I have decided. He's really the only one who acts like he has a brain.

The book opens up with exercising Bonnie, and I guess she's training so well that Monty starts mentioning this Marquesa Stakes thing and this somehow leads him to a pancake house with Julie. They eat pancakes. I guess. I don't know...I read that part quite a while ago. I just know that this scene ends during a rainstorm and in the middle of the storm, while they're driving back to the farm, Julie sees "something alive" on the side of the road. Just guess what it is. Guess. I bet you will get it right on the first try.

It's another dog. Someone ran over it (while it was, like, not raining!) and left it to die. Yeah, poor it. I didn't really care all that much because all I was thinking was "Really? Another damned dog?" Monty is kinda thinking the same thing, proof positive for why he's awesome. Unfortunately Julie wears the pants in their non-relationship and insists that they take the dog to this vet and then she comes up with this idea that she'll open an animal shelter at Deepwater Farm and because Mr. T is rich he says sure? Something like that. And she keeps the dog. She names it Barney or something along those lines. She now has a Beagle, a St. Bernard, and this new dog, which is an Irish Wolfhound. How she manages this, I really don't know.

Moving on, Bonnie continues to be fantastic. Everyone exclaims on how fantastic she is. Oh, to be so fantastic! Then Julie kinda sorta gets squished by a crazy run away and injures her back. This is the END OF THE WORLD for everyone, pretty much. Because, as previously stated, Julie is everyone's personal Jesus in these books. So Bonnie's stakes race comes along and by that point there's been this long hospital drama I don't care to get into because there was all of that "but I have to see the race!" and more "like hell you do!" and more "but I really can walk! oh, wait... *collapses*" and then some "well, okay, but as long as you stay in your wheelchair..." and by that point I wanted someone to run a car over her.

But then Bonnie wins! Oh, bliss! She wins her race by seventeen lengths and sets a new track record of 2:01 and something which doesn't impress me. Everyone is thrilled. Only then they have to test her and a couple of days later they are informed that her tests are "cloudy" but not positive...so, yeah. Monty screams a lot and the racing secretary guy just sort of shrugs and since they are "cloudy" they are not disqualified? Well, whatever. It doesn't really matter because this means Julie has to immediately ask Monty why he did it. Wow, that's friendship for you.

Monty is suitably crushed. The girl he loves and wants to marry instantly suspects him of doping her equine soul mate. What is a boy to do? So everyone finally gets over Julie's super shininess to tell her she was being a bitch to Monty, and she's still determined to blame him because she figures he couldn't handle seeing her disappointed or some such.

Now, granted, Monty has been treating her like glass for five books now. I understand Julie's frustration because she's something like 22 at this point and I imagine she just wants to have sex already. Monty still sees her as a child, but really, it's just ridiculous. So then Julie finally realizes that this can't possibly be right. Monty wouldn't do such a thing because he's awesome.

So another race comes along. Bonnie wins by eleven or twelve lengths or something. She comes back with another positive test. Monty freaks again. Julie freaks. Everyone freaks. What's more, Monty gets suspended so they have to move Bonnie off to another trainer. Mr. T is NOT HAPPY. But because he's rich and therefore powerful, he pushes his weight around and gets Bonnie put in a stable to herself with 24/7 guard so she'll be under watch constantly. It is, theoretically, impossible for this horse to be tampered with. So what happens? Yeah, she comes back from another race (she wins it by ten lengths) and has yet another positive result. All hell breaks loose because at this point they're all questioning each other and so forth.

Mr. T has had it. He's ready to pull Bonnie off the track. But then someone comes up with the idea to send Bonnie to Cornell. Because they have some fancy lab equipment that they can put to use testing their horse to see if she'll randomly test positive for amphetamines. As it turns out, she does. So apparently she's just special and producing her own steroids? Well, whatever is happening, Bonnie is the source of all the drama because her metabolism changed after her pregnancy and no matter what she'll keep spitting out false positives.

I have no idea if this is possible. With people, kidney and liver disease will give you a false positive for amphetamines...as well as diabetes...but I don't know how this works for horses. I have no interest in finding out, either. As it happens.

Anyway, everyone is happy. Monty finally asks Julie to marry him and she says yes.

• Monty is as "hopelessly tongue-tied as a bashful lad out of the summer of 1875." Were lads especially bashful in the summer of 1875, or is this a reference I'm not catching?

• "The other boys would have loved to beat [Sunbonnet]. I know for a fact the boy on Ruby Frump bet a bundle on [Sunbonnet]..." Yeah, that's not possible. Jockeys can only bet races through the owner of the horse they're riding, only on the horse they're riding, and only to win. Also, who names a horse Ruby Frump?

So, there's nothing else to say. Except that I think I'm going to try out a Nancy Drew book called The Riding Club Crime next. I may have been tempted to read it solely because the cover depicts a girl and horse falling over Niagara Falls. I couldn't help wondering how they get out of that one.

Bonnie and the Haunted Farm, or Why Dogs and Stepsisters are Evil

Bonnie and the Haunted Farm
by Barbara van Tuyl
Published: 1974

If you're wondering to yourself if this book was published in October right in time for the holidays, then you would be completely correct. Yeah, it seems rather silly, but I'm not kidding. October 1974. I guess someone at Signet thought horse crazy girls everywhere would finish up their trick or treating and then read this book by flashlight in their darkened room because this book has it all: insane asylums, ghosts, murder...even implied incest! Yes, truly this was the Halloween book to buy in 1974.

Accidents, or evil?

When young trainer Monty Everett presented Julie with a new stallion, Cache, Julie's happiness seemed complete. Bonnie, her champion racer, was soon to be a mother, and now she had a second horse to call her own. Between training Cache, worrying over Bonnie, and befriending handsome Dirk Markham and his sister Alexis, the new owners of Croydon Farm, Julie found her days filled with excitement.

And then accidents started happening at Croydon: Julie was hurt in an inexplicable fall, Cache was injured, and Julie had to spend a terror-filled evening at Croydon, with only the ghost of its tragic past for company. Coincidence or campaign of terror? Was someone trying to scare Julie away from the Markhams and Croydon Farm? Julie could not know the danger her quest for answers would bring to her and her prized Sunbonnet....

This blurb is in the past tense, which for some reason really annoys me. It's like someone decided to treat it like a book report instead of a summary intended to sell copies of this book. Plus, Dirk Markham? What is this, Harlequin Romance all of a sudden? Julie gives Ashleigh Griffen herself a run for her money in regards to acting completely and irritatingly innocent, and we're going to throw a DIRK in her direction? This just seems extremely wrong to me.

Well, whatever. Dirk or no Dirk, Julie's nineteen now and she's going to have to learn about the wonders of sex somehow. If Monty doesn't get around to it eventually, Dirk is ready and willing. However, I'm getting ahead of myself. We haven't even met Dirk yet. Dirk. God, what the hell? For sanity's sake, I wandered over to www.babynames.com and discovered it's a German form of Derek meaning Famous Ruler, and that still doesn't help.

This book opens up with Julie going all crazy about this girl called Lisa Marsden. Apparently Deepwater or Fieldstone Farm (I am pretty sure this book takes place at Fieldstone Farm, Deepwater's breeding farm, but I can never be sure who's supposed to be where and why...it is very confusing) broke her horse for her because her horse is persnickety when it comes to bridles. Julie is all excited because Lisa is going to ride this horse in a show and yay, oh yay, let's all go and see this horse. Leon Pitt agrees, but not before Julie sees his newspaper and discovers that Croydon Farm has been sold. Croydon Farm is the neighboring farm that's been uninhabited for something like a decade because all these horrible things happened and Leon immediately delves into it because it's important to set the scene. Leon tells Julie that this young couple bought the farm and their kid managed to drown in a pond on the property. If this wasn't bad enough, the couple decides to adopt this orphan who winds up taking an ax to their heads when he's a teenager. Everyone is appropriately stunned and so the kid confesses to his best friend and is pronounced quite crazy and shuffled off into some state hospital where he's destined for shock therapy and padded walls.

Therefore Croydon Farm is evil. Moving on to the show. Julie meets up with Lisa, who's only purpose seems to be discussing why Monty and Julie aren't having sex. Only this is 1974, so she's asking why they aren't married already. Julie is embarrassed and tries to hide the fact that she's blushing and not thinking about having sex with Monty because oh my God she is 19 and he is 23 and what is the world coming to? Well, whatever, because she gets home from the show and there's Monty, complete with a new horse just for her. So she loses it and kisses him (which might be their first kiss, but then it might not be because the book is playing around with this relationship to the point of absurdity and Barbara van Tuyl is apparently extremely coy) and Monty is all pleased. The horse is a gray stallion...yeah, it's Cache. With a ch and not an sh, but Julie does not care so for all we know she spells it Cash.

Anyway, while Monty is home from the track we have to take advantage of this situation. The new neighbors arrive and Leon or Stash or someone tells Julie to bring a welcome basket over. Because that there's a woman's work. Julie drags Monty along with her because she's scared of the place and doesn't know what to expect. Apparently she wasn't expecting Paul Newman to answer the door, but believe me when I say that Monty is really annoyed about it. Dirk Markham is just a dream boat, who actually is described as a "young Paul Newman." How can we resist such a temptation? He's all, yay visitors! And Monty is all oh no. Julie is all, tell me all about your horses and your animals while I completely ignore the fact that you are staring at me while Monty glares at you! And then there's Dirk's sister, Alexis, who is basically the ice queen. Dirk wants them to all stay and visit for a while and Monty's trying his hardest to get Julie out of the house because he's the jealous type, and Alexis is thrilled to see them leave because she's also the jealous type and can we see the plot developing here? Okay, just checking.

Then we all begin the wait for Bonnie to give birth. While this happens, Julie's new dog, Pushy, a St. Bernard, injures himself and she has to take him off for some stitches while Stash and Leon (doing their best Dr. Holmes and Mr. Watson impression) go to Julie's cottage to find out why. Well, it doesn't take a lot of guessing. There's broken glass all over the kitchen floor, and they pick it all up and take it to the barn to reconstruct whatever it was that broke. This...must have been extremely time consuming. However, they manage to put it back together because there's this red paint on the glass (not blood, we are helpfully informed, because someone has read their Dostoyevsky and remembered that blood turns brown when dry). So, what's the broken object? It's a glass ax! But oh my gosh, this clearly is a sign because the Croydon murders were committed with an ax! Let's not tell Julie what's going on because, you know, that would just freak her out and ruin a giant plot point we can save for later. So Julie comes back and Bonnie has her twins (Deerstalker and Highland Tam), only the filly is all weak and the vet wants to kill her on sight because that's what people did in novels by Barbara van Tuyl and K.M. Peyton. Julie saves the filly, again doing her best Ashleigh Griffen impression, and Tam grows up all healthy but small and therefore will probably be no good at anything.

This is when Dirk makes his appearance again, causing chaos between Leon and Stash as Stash ruthlessly roots for Monty and Leon doesn't appear to really care either way. Dirk invites Julie to come see his crazy off track thoroughbred he's renamed Soul-searching. I hate horse names involving hyphens. I can't explain it. But that's besides the point. Julie starts coming over to Croydon all the time because Dirk wants to help her out with retraining Cache to jump. Or do something vaguely event oriented with. I don't know. There was so much technical jump/hunter/blah blah blah talk in this book I zoned out a lot when something evil wasn't happening. So then Dirk falls in love with her. He tells her so. Julie's response?

"I'm quite certain, Mr. Markham, that we'd better not mention the subject again until I've thought it out some."

Damn, I should have taken some pointers from Julie when I was her age. Anyway, determined to wait her out, Dirk then asks her a neighborly favor of feeding the horses and dogs (he's got a kennel of hounds for his drag hunting purposes) tomorrow while he's away. Julie agrees and thus he goes away. She comes over the next day, drags her own dogs with her (remember back to Sunbonnet: Filly of the Year, when I said you can make any plot work by giving your main character a dog? Well, keep that in mind) takes care of everything, and winds up with all 20 hounds running loose on the property. She keeps putting them in the kennel and they keep getting out and eventually she discovers there's a second door that's open and so once that's solved she sticks them all in the kennel and then her dog runs away. Seriously, Julie, put the dog on a leash. Nana looks responsible, but she's annoying as all hell.

Thus she winds up in the house, with her car dead, and somehow falls asleep in the den. When she wakes up there's a raging storm outside and she discovers that there's a giant bloodstain on the floor. So this would be the room where the ax murder happened back when, although Julie is not at all scared. She's all, well, great, I'll just leave now. But then the wind or something slams the door shut and she's stuck because the door is all warped and won't work. Now she's basically locked in the house's most upsetting room and this is when the noises start. Shuffling footstep noises and so forth. Then her St. Bernard appears in the window and she opens it up and he hops inside. It's pouring out, thus she doesn't want to go outside. Which I find stupid because, you know, I'm not good in potentially threatening situations where I'm cornered in a room. I'd rather jump out the window, but not Julie. Not even when the footsteps become banging noises out in the hall. Then someone throws a rock through the window. Julie takes this all in stride, like it's normal.

This keeps going and going until Monty, Leon and Stash show up and crawl in the window also. After she's been gone for hours on end I guess they decided something was up, and rather then go to bed they went after her. They manage to open the door and discover that the banging noise was that stupid BEAGLE who got her head stuck in a grease jar and was banging her head repeatedly against the wall. The footstep noise was Pushy, because he drags his giant dog feet.

Anyway, we discover that Alexis is really Dirk's stepsister. And Dirk is like 28. Alexis has been all rude or not around when Julie is at Croydon, which is supposed to imply that because she's actually not related to Dirk she wants his manliness for herself. Then Julie kisses Monty and Monty kisses her back and oh my God hearts and rainbows, only it involves coffee and awkwardness and the word "disengaged," which I hate. Absolutely nothing comes of this.

So then the following stuff happens:
1. Julie and Dirk measure a sequence of jumps. They go to tack up the horses and come back to the jumps, going through them as planned except the last jump has been moved. This causes Julie to fall off. Damn.
2. Dirk offers his saddle to Julie to test out, because his saddle is super awesome. She jumps with it and the stirrup breaks and she falls and twists her ankle. Damn.
3. Cache injures himself in this stirrup episode. Double damn.
4. Instead of putting pink antibiotic cream on Cache's injury, the containers get confused and merc-oxide blister gets put on it instead, causing a complete leg melt down and lays up Cache for six weeks instead of a few days.
5. Dirk invites Julie on a drag hunt, and her horse is all slow and then a "figure" spooks her horse and this is meant to freak her out or something.

This all takes a while, as you can imagine. I'm just being efficient at this point. In the middle of this, Alexis keeps telling Julie that she thinks there are ghosts on the property and Stash thinks Dirk is really the crazy guy who somehow escaped from his padded room and came back to exact revenge, or something. All of this culminates in a) Stash and Leon yelling at Monty to tell Julie he loves her for Christ's sake and b) Bonnie being stolen again. This is really kind of a been there, done that sort of plot. Only this time Nana comes to the rescue and finds Bonnie on Croydon's property. Dirk is all pissed off, so they take the mare back to Fieldstone Farm and Alexis is there and Alexis goes all pale and, as you have probably guessed by now, Alexis is our culprit because she wants her stepbrother and was all pissed off because he wanted Julie.

In classic fictional form, Alexis comes out with all of it. She planted the glass ax, which shattered because Pushy scared her. She did all the rest of it, and stole Bonnie, thinking that would at least distract Julie for a while until she could put Bonnie back on Fieldstone's property. So...yeah. Nevertheless, Dirk does not want to have sex with his stepsister, so she gets sent to the padded room. Then everyone muses about how they thought Dirk was the crazy ax murderer guy, and he says haha that's funny but actually I'm that guy's best friend.

And everyone sort of shuts up very quickly. So it turns out that the crazy ax murderer guy sort of went extra crazy and started saying he saw his dead parents, but twisted it around and said he killed them when he didn't. Dirk always believed that he never killed his parents, but no one could ever prove it, especially when the guy confessed. So Dirk bought the place thinking he could find some clue to prove the guy innocent. As luck would have it, Julie was doing some snooping before the drag hunt, and found the murder weapon under the previously stained, recently sanded floorboard. The murderer's prints are all over it because the guy was apparently stupid, and Julie told no one because no one tells anyone anything in these books. Because sharing important information is seen as "worrying someone unnecessarily." So they get the cops back and they find out that some crazy person who was not the couple's adopted son was the real killer and so now Dirk's friend is free to roam the Kentucky countryside. And, as it always happens in these books, Tolkov is there with job in hand for the previously crazy ex-lunatic. Because Mr. Tolkov is awesome and apparently has no standards.

• Julie describes Monty as antediluvian. Which means "of or relating to the period before the flood described in the Bible." Poor Monty.

• The end of the book is basically dedicated to the budding competition between Monty and Dirk for Julie. Here I thought we'd come to some closure on this topic by now, but no. We are treated to all sorts of talk about how Monty is a closer and Dirk is a front runner and how this race is going to come down to the wire. They have this grudging respect for one another now as they talk about tote boards while Julie's playing around with her dogs, completely oblivious to the fact that she's being treated like a prize. It makes me want to hit both of them.

So, that's it. One more book left in this series, because Bonnie is headed back to the racetrack in The Betrayal of Bonnie. To Barbara's credit, she does say rather point blank that mares who have been bred rarely, if ever, return to their racing careers. So she makes a point of stating that it's almost ludicrous to expect Bonnie to make a comeback. The only reason I can think of for this plot even happening is because she needs to get Monty and Julie together soonish, and Bonnie's foals are too young to provide much plot, therefore Bonnie is our dependable fall back plan. We shall see how it works.

Yet Another Star-Studded Story

Star of Shadowbrook Farm
By Joanna Campbell
Published: August 1992
Republished as Ashleigh's Thoroughbred Collection: May 1998

Alas, the public library system has failed me. Well, not really. It's just that some requested books are still in transit, so it might be a few more days yet before I receive them. I was doing some non-horsey (even though technically the book has horses in it) extra-curricular reading, but while reading Zorro: A Novel by Isabel Allende, I just caught a pretty strong whiff of the ripe smell of Mary Sue. As it turns out, there's a girl character in the book named Isabel. And I'm gathering that as I progress farther into the novel, she's going to know exactly who Zorro is and is going to use a sword herself, and likely ride by his side to help him fight Eeeeeevil! HA! Don't get me wrong, I adore the story of Zorro -- I'm a California girl, he's like our version of Batman and Robin Hood all rolled up into one -- but I think for the sake of my sanity, I needed to take a very quick respite from the toils of Zorro: A Novel, and do a book review.

I have a confession to make. Are you ready to hear it? Really ready? Well, here goes... I am a lazy ass. I repeat, I am a lazy ass. Instead of making myself do a tough 5 or so minutes of scanning the cover of the copy that I have, did a quick Google search, found that monstrosity, and called it a day. Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful cover, or it would be, were it not for the fucking huge monstrosity that reads: ASHLEIGH'S THOROUGHBRED COLLECTION. Just clutters the whole thing up. That aside, I'm muchly glad that my copy is from the first printing six years prior to this, and therefore doesn't look like a butt-ugly eyesore. I always liked the balance of color and motion on the page; although I've always wondered where they are, since there's so much space behind them, it's too large for a stall.

Can Susan ever ride again?

Susan has fallen off her horses before. After all, she's been riding since she was young. But this last spill was different. Susan only broke her wrist, but she knows it could have been a lot worse for her or the horse. And it was her own fault. Now, just thinking about riding terrifies her.

Then Evening Star comes to the horse farm where Susan lives. Star's elegant gait and graceful stride show he could become a champion jumper. But he was mistreated by his former owner, and as a result he trust no one in the stable except Susan. Susan knows that only she can make Star a winner, but she also knows that she isn't ready to ride again...

Here we go! The timeless classic tale of a horse-crazy girl who gets badly rattled by a traumatic fall, and it takes a very special horse to help get her back in the saddle. And of course, that horse was mistreated by his past (and I'll raise the ante because you just know he was whipped!) and she has to help him so he can help her. Bully!

So our story begins with Susan walking into the Shadowbrook Farm stable office to collect her hard hat so she can go teach an intermediate jump class. We're then treated to a whole internal monologue about how Susan hates teaching this class because of this totally popular little bitch named Tara Pendleton, who is, I suppose your usual arch-nemesis the likes of Diana Carruthers, and Veronica DiAngelo (y'know, popular, pretty, rich -- maybe -- all the stuff that our valient heroines are not) and how different Susan feels from her because Tara is being treated like a sex object by the boys in their class, and yadda, yadda, blah blah. So off Susan goes to her lesson, maliciously hoping that Tara has caught Dengue Fever or Syphilis, but sucks to be her because Miss Pretty Bitch is just fine.

Now, this always was a perplexing issue for me, but the majority of the students in Susan's intermediate jumping class are all in their teens, thereabouts. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but most teenagers seem to be of the rather competitive nature. To be taught how to jump by a girl the same age as them must really be irritating, yet apparently nobody (not even Tara the Queen Bitch if you're you believe Susan) has possibly whined to any parents who then flip out about a teenager teaching their Pwecious! I mean, yeah, obviously Susan has to help teach lessons, but can't she I dunno, take on leadliners or something? Little short stirrup up/downers. Someone to whom your average 7 year-old can look up to, instead of potentially raising the ire of parents who pay all this money for their kid's riding lessons only to have a girl their own age teaching them. Also, Joanna described Susan's students as having "been jumping for several months" which means they've probably just graduated out of doing trot poles, and threfore shouldn't be considered "intermediate" jumpers. But it's a minor quibble I suppose.

Anyway, Susan rides a green horse named Jocko in her riding lesson. The hell, what is this, karmic retribution or something? Remember the exercise rider in Wonder's Promise? What'd he do, die and be reincarnated as a horse? Now, I've never really seen an instructor in the saddle while on a horse, particularly in a group lesson, and most especially while jumping. I mean, what if some student of hers clips a rail and brings it down? There's a pretty damn obvious reason why instructors are usually ground-bound, which ought to be a no-brainer. But clearly, this reasoning fails Susan, and during the midst of teaching, Tara takes over with her !witty commentary, and this sends Susan into a towering rage that she screams at Tara to "Butt out!" (And this is why 14 year old children should not teach other 14 year old children to ride) and proceeds to demonstrate to the class how incompetent she is jumping a green horse.

Thus Susan breaks her wrist when Jocko goes ape-shit and throws himself head-on at the ring fence. There is much pain, and humiliation when Tara takes charge, and Susan practically wants to die on the spot. And there's much humiliation to follow when Tara manages to get Jocko around the jump course a week later. Susan just about has apoplexy, and bolts for the woods, whereupon she stumbles across a water jump on the rich neighbor's property just in time to see the rich snotty teenage neighbor ride a big gray horse up to the jump. Except the gray horse refuses, and naturally the rider does what she's supposed to do -- give the horse a smack with the crop. He refuses again! So Maxine (the teenage rich snob) smacks him again. Rinse, recycle, repeat. She's just gonna keep flogging him all day (clearly we're treated to Joanna Campbell's personal crusade against horse abuse and whips) because she is Evil and Bad, and therefore pre-disposed to horse abuse because we're supposed to hate her. So finally wearing out her crop leather, Maxine gets the horse over the water jump, and off they go.


A few days later, Susan manages to make it to school, Tara puts on a Fake Sweet Bitch act and humiliates Susan some more in front of her classmates. Susan does this withdrawing act, and just basically shuts down until she gets home where she finds her dad bought the big gray horse that she'd seen Maxine riding. He's four years old, and is a Thoroughbred named Evening Star. And at some point, he jumps out of the pasture, and goes tearing off into the woods where Susan chases after him, and they come across a girl named Whitney Duncan. She catches Star, they take him back to her place and call Susan's parents. And the two girls talk and make friends, and it's all cool and that jazz. So Susan's dad suggests that Susan groom the horse because Star practically wants to crawl in her pocket.

So Susan takes Whitney to school, and Whitney blows off Tara, and hangs with Susan, and gets the whole story of the accident from both Tara and Susan. Susan grooms Evening Star, and fusses over him while Tara goes on and on about how she's going to buy a horse. And then one night, Susan's father tells her that Tara wants to buy Star, so Susan vows not over her dead body, and goes on the horse. It's instant love match, oh yay! And Susan finds out how to help condition Star properly. And it works, and she rides him, and oh yay some more. Tara keep on bragging and bragging about how much Evening Star gives her a hard on even though she hasn't ridden him yet (and that just makes me giggle madly) and when Tara sees Susan on Evening Star, she flips out like ninja and Susan finally manages to find the cajones to stand up to her. Hurrah for Susan!

And with Evil Tara's plans for riding Evening Star like an 1888 Whitechapel whore foiled (because clearly Tara owning Evening Star would be the kiss of death) Susan and Whitney can now begin to focus on their eventing careers. Tara of course, sulks around for a bit, and then gets a hard on for a new horse named Dickens. Whitney cleans out her closet and loads Susan down with clothes, and cuts Susan's hair, and Susan goes to school where everyone practically shits their pants because "Whoa, Susan is like Not a Freak!" and then Whitney bullies Susan into going to the Christmas dance where they actually get Susan to dance with members of the opposite sex. Brilliant!

So along comes Christmas Day, and it snows. So Susan, her parents, and older brother of course hitch a horse up to a sleigh and drive off to the Duncans' home, and then it's back home for Christmas treats for the horses (something that Joanna apparently really likes being as it's appeared in several books by now) and Susan gets a entire new wardrobe of show clothes from her parents. And then after Christmas, Susan teaches a beginner class again, and there's general trashing of how Tara is riding her horse like an 1888 Whitechapel whore, and they talk about her behind her back. Susan manages to jump fences again thanks to Star, and then Whitney invites Susan to some show at Madison Square Gardens.

So off to New York, New York the two girls go, and they meet this cute boy named Ronny who totally loves eventing. So he and Susan chat it up. Some time passes, Susan and Star turn into a team, and then comes the moment when Susan falls off Star doing gymnastics, and she freaks, but one of the assistant trainers on the farm makes her get back in the saddle. Crisis averted. Then the weather turns, and spring arrives and so Susan and Whitney go out on the cross-country course, and return to see Tara throwing a temper tantrum about wanting to go out there too. Whatever!

Eventually, Susan, Whitney and even Pretty Bitch Tara go to a horse show. Tara apprently has a huge case of the "butterflies in the stomach" because she tacks her horse up way early and starts warming him up. Whitney and Susan go off to change and Susan is horrified that she has to strip off her clothes in front of other women (honey, you 'aint got anything those ladies haven't already seen) and as they're warming up, Maxine walks over to confront Susan. Evening Star practically shits his pants thinks he's going to be flogged again. They wait for their rounds in jumping, and Tara has to ride first. She goes clean until the last fence when Dickens pulls the rail, thereby giving our Dynamic Duo the opportunity to discuss her FenceFail. But that's fine because Whitney fucks it up even more and gets two faults. Which leaves it all up to Susan to go clean and win the damn class. Bully! But not before having a near meltdown, and begging her horse to help her, which of course, he does.

Susan and Whitney aim for the Winter Horse trials, and Tara gets a case of sour grapes and bad mouths Susan all over school. And then it's time for the Winter horse Trials, and so far, Susan is ahead after a clean run in cross-country and show jumping. She runs into Ronny again, and goes gaga over him. Susan gets second in her event, and Whitney wins hers. And then three weeks later, Susan and Star win, and the whole family starts thinking they ought to enter Star in Groton Horse Trials, which I always thought was a bit much to expect of a five-year-old horse.

Moving along, our Dynamic Duo lurk around the tack store where they see Tara trying on $300 dress boots, and they talk about her behind her back. But this is clearly OK because they are the Good Girls and Tara's just the Bitch. And thus, as Susan is schooling her horse over the cross-country course, he spooks, throws her and she probably fucks her wrist up again. Ooops. Well, turns out Ms. Maxine was on the other side of the fence screaming hysterically and going postal at her horse, so Star shat his pants again. Anyway, Susan sprains her wrist and can't ride for a month. But clearly something must be done because Groton is coming up.

However! In what shall become a very familiar plot to readers of the Annoying Riding Princess Death Match, Susan proposes that Whitney ride Evening Star at Groton. Or at least ride Star and keep him in training for the month that Susan can't ride. Whitney finally caves in to her bestest friend, and sets to work. Of course, before all this happens, Tara has to gloat to Susan at school about missing any upcoming shows. But naturally, she just happens to be at the stable to see Whitney riding Star, so she has another freak out attack.

School ends, and Susan and Whitney go with their class to some park along the Housatonic River where they go canoing, and Whitney stands up in the canoe, and they tip over. Hooray, wet girls! And Tara just happens to be right there to point and laugh. But at last, they get to Groton, and they settle the horses in. Maxine apparently must have some superior power of telepathy because she waits until Susan, Whitney and their parents are all busy the next morning before going to Tara and asking her if she could take a look at Star. This of course is part of her devious plan to psych out the competition (more than likely completely destroy) because it's something worthy of Brad Townsend's awesomeness. In doing so, Maxine manages to make Star shit his hooves, and whimper like a fucking pussy just by standing in the stall (unless of course she managed to flog him with a whip while Tara's back was turned.)

This of course makes Star a nervous wreck, and he bites Whitney and she cries like a baby, and begs Susan to ride Star instead. Which Susan does, even though she hasn't ridden a horse in a month. And since Joanna already established the fact that Susan and Whitney wear the same size back when Whitney gave Susan all those clothes, they have an easy way of getting riding gear for Susan. And while waiting for her dressage test, Susan swears to Star that she'll pull a Cindy and sleep in his stall to protect him. Which either happens or it doesn't because we time travel to the following day where Susan does well, and they tie with Maxine for first place. Ronny shows up again, and chats with Susan a bit before they go back to the motel, and Susan's wrist is hurting like hell. Whitney feels bad, of course, and gets ice.

The next morning, it's time for the show jumping round, and Susan and Star get a clean round, and then Maxine's horse pulls the very last rail, which means Susan wins Groton for her division, and then passes out cold in front of her parents. And we all live happily ever after.

Points of Interest:

• Susan's father is named Mitch. Naturally this makes me giggle like a maniac because the only Mitch I can associate with the name is my golden boy.

• Double You Tee Eff! Whitney's parents have a BMW and a Jeep Cherokee. Seriously, does Joanna Campbell have stock in Jeep or something?

So anyway, I think I'm finally ready to venture back into the adventures of that masked horseman known as Zorro now. I'll likely regret it though if the Mary Sue-ism gets worse. I heard that the author was supposed to be so good, but between the Sue senorita and the telepathic connection between Diego and Bernardo (I fucking kid you not) it's a bit much to expect. Ah well, c'est la vie!

Sunbonnet: Most Scandalous Filly of the Year

Sunbonnet: Filly of the Year
by Barbara van Tuyl
Published: 1973

Given how completely out of nowhere weird and awful A Horse Called Bonnie was, I walked into this installment with markedly less enthusiasm. Although, that could also be because I dislocated my knee yesterday and have been resorted to hobbling around as I wait for normalcy to return. I'm not too enthusiastic about anything right now, mainly because I'd really just like to bend my knee properly without wincing. Naturally, this is where the sudden urge to delve back into Julie and Bonnie's world presented itself. There you have it.

Anyway, this cover is really not normal for this series. Basically, it finally acknowledges that Julie is, in fact, blond. However, it's presenting her as a Barbie here, which is pretty far off the mark, no matter how ditsy she may act in the book. Also, one fact I simply must point out: Bonnie's jockey is black. I think the artist went for mildly tan here. Nice going, cover artist.

Foul Against Bonnie!

Though Sunbonnet (known as Bonnie to her young trainer Julie Jefferson) was favored to win the coveted prize in the famed Bridal Stakes, there was a long stretch duel and a photo finish, with a claim of foul against Bonnie. A vicious jockey and a tragic accident in still another race jeopardize Bonnie's racing career.

Julie finds herself involved in mysterious happenings which not only imperil her horse's life, but which threaten to shock and disrupt the world of thoroughbred racing....

Yeah, this tells you absolutely nothing about the story. It's really very impressive in that regard.

Okay, this book was printed in November 1973. It is important to take note of this, because Secretariat has come and gone by this point (you'll find out why this is important later, promise). The previous book was in 1971, and there's this dedication:

"This book is for Bev and Cindy, who asked, "What happened to Bonnie after that?"

I can only assume, then, that this series was never meant to be a series, and Bev and Cindy must have been really pushy about wanting more books. Only one author answered the call: Barbara van Tuyl. I have decided that Barbara van Tuyl was the talent in this operation, or at least the one who came up with more interesting plotlines (at least, more interesting than throwing your horse into a claimer and then being all shocked and dismayed when the horse is actually, God forbid, CLAIMED), which is a good sign. So I'll say first, before I get into the rest of this, that Sunbonnet: Filly of the Year is much better than A Horse Called Bonnie. In that I will not be screaming nearly as much as I did in the last Bonnie entry.

Okay. The deal is that Bonnie is awesome. She's like a filly version of Man o'War, because her stride is nearly as long. Yes, so she's just trouncing her competition coming up to the Bridal Stakes, but there is this other filly that is nearly as good as her, if not just as good, called Canary Feathers. During the race, some bumping happens, and the jockey of Canary Feathers lodges a complaint that doesn't stand. So Bonnie is the winner and the offended jockey basically says something like "screw this" and makes some empty threat that no one thinks much of. Until the next race, when he decides to pull a Jeremy Rose and starts to beat his horse until it veers across the track and rams straight into Bonnie. Bonnie bobbles around, but won't quit and comes in second. Of course, another complaint later, Bonnie is installed as the winner and the evil jockey gets the boot and a 20 day suspension.

Only the thing is Bonnie has shattered her sesamoid bone in her left leg, basically resulting in the end of her racing career. Or, well, someone says something about her being able to come back in a year or more, but Deepwater Farm won this fantabulous breeding to Greyhill Stud's Bothwell and why not use it, right? So they retire Bonnie and ship her off to Greyhill Stud. This, of course, makes little sense to me because if you don't want to board your mare at the stud of the stallion (and I see no reason why Deepwater Farm, which is apparently something like 5,000 acres and owns another huge farm simply to breed horses, would board any mare anywhere else), all you'd have to do is trailer the mare the day of the appointment, do the whole horse sex thing, shove her back in a trailer, and take her home. It's a two hour drive. I mean, come on. But whatever. Bonnie goes to stay at Greyhill Stud until they, like, get around to breeding her or something ridiculous like that.

Anyway, then Leon Pitt (Bonnie's former trainer from two books ago) comes along and gives Julie a Beagle puppy. So Julie is all overjoyed and names the puppy Nana because it "looks responsible." I have no idea where she gets this idea, but it comes out later that she named it Nana after the dog in Peter Pan. Anyway, Nana pretty much becomes the single catalyst for everything that happens in the rest of the book. Really. Writing a book? What something completely ridiculous to happen or be discovered and you can't figure out how to go about making it work? Give your main character a dog. Seriously.

So anyway, Julie keeps coming over to Greyhill Stud to visit Bonnie and the people at Greyhill are NOT HAPPY that she keeps coming over. They're all, what do you want? all the time and completely do not care that she owns the horse. It's really annoying. Anyway, Julie keeps bringing Nana with her and on one of these visits Nana gets out and proceeds to run away. Julie runs after her and winds up at the stud groom's house. Here we are presented with a completely random conversation that lasts about three chapters between Julie and the eccentric but kind stud groom, Pop. Pop, I guess, was a trainer or something and has this really creepy obsession with his crippled stallion that lives in his backyard. This stallion is chestnut, with "the look of eagles," and is basically Secretariat, only its name is Scotch Tweed, which they shorten to Tweedy. Get it? Subtle, Barbara.

So Tweedy is all crippled because he got caught in the gate during training and injured himself so severely he never got to race. Although we are assured that had he raced he would have been better than Man o'War. Pop is all demoralized because he never got to breed him. So demoralized that he's finally pulled together some more money to buy a nice mare to try him with. Good for him. I guess. Anyway, Julie goes frolicking home and discusses with Monty how crazy everyone is at Greyhill, and he promises to come over with her and check it out. During this trip, Nana again runs off and they chase her into another "barren-mare" barn, where they find all of these five-month foals stabled with their dams. Only the thing is...it's March! Holy crap! So they grab Nana and get the hell out of dodge.

Monty then has to go somewhere because he's a trainer and such, leaving Julie at Deepwater Farm, where she will no doubt get into more trouble. She does this, and goes back to Greyhill to talk to Pop about this whole foal issue. Only when she finally gets there (she has to drive through some back roads because the people at the farm have finally had it and won't let her in) she stumbles through the trees and sees Pop at his place with...Bonnie! Instead of running down there and clocking the crazy asshat in the face, she takes off and goes to see Leon Pitt, who tells her to go back and get Bonnie, like now. He gives her his old trailer and off she goes to get Bonnie.

This is where the real fun starts. She rolls up to the gate of Greyhill Stud, and by this point the guard is about ready to start crying because he's so sick of her. He tells her there's no way she's getting in. He doesn't care who she is or why she's there. Just forget it. So she tells him that she needs to test the intercom in the trailer, so will he kindly step inside. He does, and she locks him in. He flips out because he gets car sick, and starts going on about how she's kidnapped him and how he'll have a heart attack. Julie just keeps telling him that she's not doing anything of the sort and no, he's not going to die. So they're yelling at each other over the intercom and she's driving around like a bat out of hell on the farm, and finally on the way to Pop's house she somehow crashes the trailer. The guard is sure he's going to die of a heart attack, so she climbs back into the trailer and gets him out and he starts going on about his pills that make his heart feel better only they are for his stomach. Julie tells him he probably has an ulcer and they proceed to have this long conversation in which she essentially explains heartburn to him. Yeah...I'm not even making that up. So he's all thrilled that he probably doesn't have a heart condition and promises her that he'll go to the doctor and she gets Nana and continues on to Pop's place after the guard tells her he'll get a tractor to tow the trailer out of the ditch she drove it into.

Yeah...so she goes to Pop's and Nana again goes crazy and tries to bite Pop's new mare, Kimberley Gem. Gem goes nuts and runs off and somehow manages to wedge herself into a cave. Julie somehow gets her out of the cave and back to Pop's house. I really don't know why this was in here, I mean really. So she has this long conversation with Pop about why he's crazy, and he admits the whole thing. That he's all crazy in love with Tweedy and wanted the best for him and has been breeding mares intended for Bothwell to Tweedy instead because Bothwell seemingly out of nowhere started to produce untalented foals and Greyhill Stud decided to breed mares intended for Bothwell to other, better but less expensive, stallions because Bothwell had the highest fee. Why they didn't just jack up the fees on the other stallions and lowered Bothwell's is anyone's guess, but Nicholas Grey (the owner, who sort of has a Brad Townsend quality to him and would probably be really awesome despite his nefariousness) decided he wanted to screw up the racing industry a little and that was that.

So! Julie's all "you bred Bonnie to Tweedy, didn't you?" And Pop admits that he did because he, like, loves Tweedy so much. Julie tells him she understands that love will make a person go a little nuts. (Leon Pitt essentially said that Pop was crazy because he wasn't getting any...and I think I believe that a little more, actually.) Julie and Pop then decide that because Mr. Tolkov is awesome he will hire him on as a stud groom for Leon Pitt, and Pop can quit Greyhill and stop being morally objectionable. Pop is thrilled. They shove Tweedy and Gem in the trailer and go up and get Bonnie. This results in some dramatics between them and the staff at Greyhill, who are like part time bouncers. Only then the guard comes along and says that Julie is great and makes the bouncers let them go. The bouncers are upset about this, because one of them really wanted to slap her around. Especially after she told him he smelled like BO.

We end the book with Pop and Julie driving away from Greyhill, discussing how fantastic Bonnie and Tweedy's foal will be. There's also some indication that the new foal will be named Deerstalker.

• Julie is eighteen and Leon Pitt pretty much starts to berate Monty about why he hasn't asked her to marry him yet. Monty is pretty clear cut about his stance that she's a kid, but no one really believes this. Eighteen is good enough for them, but Monty is not thrilled. Therefore he proceeds to be completely the big brother to Julie for the rest of the book, no matter how often they play flirt. It's a little uncomfortable.

• "Good," said Mr. T, and shook hands warmly and went away to do some millionaire-style business on the phone before post time. See, the humor doesn't fall short in this book. Tolkov is also described in one instance as being "in France, buying something."
  

• Julie keeps saying that they aren't going to retire Bonnie until she wins the Triple Crown, which is weird considering the book starts off in September when Bonnie is three. Monty remarks on this as being an inside joke because Bonnie missed the Triple Crown entirely, but I don't really get it. At all.
  

The next installment is Bonnie and the Haunted Farm, in which the back blurb starts out: "accidents, or evil?" I'm not sure about this, but A Home For Melanie still has not shown up and I need to put more ice on my knee, so I suppose I will do this while Julie Jefferson battles ghosts or something. Should be good times.

Look Out Everyone! Olympic-sized Dreams Coming Through!

High Hurdles #1: Olympic Dreams
By Lauraine Snelling
Publish Date: 1995

As per Sundae's request, I'm going to be tackling The Golden Filly and High Hurdles series by Lauraine Snelling. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to do so since all I had was book #1 of The Golden Filly lot, but since I've discovered that our inter-library loan for the TriCounties does have the books at branch libraries, I've gone ahead and put some on request. Only doing two at a time though because of the loan thing, and how it works (and because they'd think I'd have to pay $25 to replace the effing thing if it gets lost -- it's happened before, true story, and I managed to get out of it by the skin of my teeth because someone realized that "Hey, she checked it in, and it got lost on the way back!" So anyway, I'm just trying to cover my ass, mmkay, and keep the loan books down to a minimum.

Luckily, my local library already had High Hurdles #1 on the shelves so I snagged it today. Now, these books are written by Lauraine Snelling. Who, as I understand it, is quite religious. She looks a bit like Mrs Doubtfire, only with blonder hair, and a bit stouter figure. She's also been quoted in her FAQs as saying that Christian writers have a special gift because of the Holy Spirit, and blah blah blah .. something more meaningful.. yadda yadda. (I guess that means atheist writers are just shit out of luck or something.) I think The Golden Filly series is really a lot more about God and religion than High Hurdles seems to be. High Hurdles is more about relationships, since the only really churchy person I can think of in the books is DJ's grandmother, whereas Tricia spends half her time in The Race having a 'Come to Jesus' moment. My gut feeling is, because the High Hurdles books were written a number of years after The Race, Lauraine decided to focus more on DJ's relationships with her friends and family rather than making the Christian thing point and center.

Thirteen-year old DJ Randall wants nothing more than to compete as a show jumper in the Olympics. After years of riding and working with horses, she’s ready to start contending. Only once obstacle stands in her way—she doesn’t have a horse!

Together with her best friend, Amy Yamamoto, DJ puts her plan for earning horse money into action. But just when it seems as if buying a horse is a real possibility, everything goes wrong. DJ’s grandmother, who has always lived with DJ and her fast-track mother, announces she is moving out.

Horrified at the prospect of living alone with a mother who doesn’t understand her dreams, DJ fights to prevent the move. Without Gran’s support, DJ may never realize her Olympic ambitions!

All DJ needs is a chance…

Look, look right there at the synposis. I mean, wow... there's not even any mention of any Higher Power (namely God) anywhere in the entire thing. It's almost like The Race couldn't wait to throw out any messages from the Divine, but Olympic Dreams focuses instead on the tale of DJ's woefully inadequate life because she doesn't have a horse, and can't be in the Olympics then. Look, DJ honey, I don't know if anyone's told you, but you're probably better off getting a rich sugar daddy sponsor and doing what 3/4ths of the Olympic equestrian teams do and ride someone else's horse.

Nonetheless, we must begin our story with DJ's dream. To ride in the freaking Olympic games, whoohoo! DJ (Darla Jean -- I can see why she has a nickname) is sitting in her room, oogling a poster of a jumping horse. It's her dream to be the rider on that horse, and she's thirteen years old, with a birthday coming up. And as it turns out, she's gotten distracted by the poster because she leaves her best friend, Amy Yamamoto, waiting downstairs for quite some time -- and she's got a lesson to teach in a half hour. Yikes! The girls have to fly! Well, bike really really fast anyway. But that doesn't stop them from talking about how much DJ wants her a horse of her own. The thing I really have to admire about DJ is that she says straight up that her mother can't afford lessons, but instead of being one of those spoiled whiny little asshat kids (like say, Nickie the Whiny Baby) who throw shitfits about not getting riding lessons, DJ goes out and trades work for lessons at Briones Riding Academy all on her own. She just comes across as more self-sufficient compared to other adolescents in most horse books, and as such, her whinging about how she doesn't have a horse of her own can mostly be forgiven. So once they arrive at the Academy, DJ goes for some lovin with her favorite horse, a sorrel gelding named Diablo. See, Diablo has these owners -- yeah, the absentee kind who seem fully willing to pour hundreds of dollars into care for an animal but never seem to show up and get on its back. Sheesh, people, just buy Breyer models or something!

DJ has a group of beginner riders; two little girls, plus one that has asthma, so she misses the lesson that day. And they're only a few years younger than her -- it just rubs salt into the wound that they have their own horses. But nonetheless, DJ bucks her chin up, and buckles down for a snazzy good lesson with Diablo, the Appendix Quarter Horse Wonder. And it just gets better because DJ wants to learn how to jump, and Bridget, the barn manager/trainer/owner-whatever says she's only been waiting for DJ to ask, and offers to let her ride some old jumper. And then James, Mr. Spoiled Rich Kid with the Super Pretty Arabian Filly shows up, and DJ has some bad thoughts about him -- mainly along the lines that he's a stuck up little prick who needs to be strangled and buried in a hole.

And then it's off for home after cleaning the tack, and DJ solicits her grandmother for money for the entry fees. DJ's grandmother is really how I see my grandparents; loving, caring wonderful people who care deeply for their grandchildren. That they happen to be fervently religious is just a facet of who they are, and they don't push their beliefs off on their grandkids (it's like they understand my inability to sit still in a church and so are more than willing to let me stay home when we go visit them.) Anyway, DJ's Gran is just like that. She gives DJ the money she needs, and DJ skips off to her room to draw pictures of horses, happy as a lark.

But her world trembles the next day as she arrives at the Academy and finds Diablo's stall gate open, and the stall empty. Oh noes! Luckily, she runs into Bridget's office and before she can work up a really good cry, Bridget tells her that Diablo's owners came and took him away, post haste because they were moving. Of course, Bridget's not too happy about it herself since she didn't get her 30 days notice, but she gives DJ an envelop from the owners. Inside is $100 which while not loads of cash, is certainly enough to help DJ towards her horse fund. Come to think of it, if only DJ was looking for a horse 13 years after 1995, she'd probably have enough right there to buy at least half of one, if not more, considering the horse market these days. And i really have to hand it to her, she's pretty emotionally bummed out about Diablo being gone, but she gets her act together, and gets ready for her jumping lesson.

And amazingly, she doesn't turn into a star jumper in just one lesson; she miscounts strides, she gets left behind, she uses too much leg, but hey, she gets her act together and rides a decent fence which is enough to satisfy her trainer. And then she gets to work c leaning stalls before going home. Right when her mother gets home, and practically runs over her bike. Ooops. But, Lindy has the grace to apologize, and DJ gets to pour her pity parade out to her mother about Diablo moving away. Of course, it's just not enough to make her mother actually go out and buy a horse, sure she sympathizes, but hey, what's she gonna do. So things get a little heated between DJ and her mom, and Lindy actually flounces out of the room in a huff. And DJ of course has to inadvertently eavesdrop on her mother and grandmother talking about her, but then it gets too quiet, so she wanders back to her room.

I'm giving DJ some more credit, but she does try to make the next morning a better day. I know she probably thinks life is pretty crappy, but she throws herself into a nice hour long lesson, and even comes up with this idea of pony rides at birthday parties as a way of making money. What she and Amy will do is borrow a pony from the stables, lead them around, and Amy could take pictures of them. What a plan! They'll be rolling in dough before you know it! In the mean time, DJ's birthday arrives, and there's a birthday party for her in the tack room, and she sees candles, and something in her brain snaps and she remembers a terrible fire she experienced as a little kid. Yeah, apparently flames are a no-go for this kid, she's go primal or something. And DJ's mom shows she's not that big of a grouch because she and Gran buy DJ a nice show outfit for her birthday. But of course, Lindy drops a hint that she's trying to get her mother matched up with a policeman. Which makes DJ uneasy for some reason.

Moving along, DJ, Amy and DJ's students go for a trail ride in Briones State Park. Now, I did some looking, and couldn't find a Briones State Park, but I found a Briones Regional Park and the place sounds positively gorgeous. Someday, when I have a trailer, I think Mitch and I will take a ride up there. It's around his old stomping grounds, when he used to be a carriage horse for Fancy Ferriage. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he hadn't pulled a wedding carriage in the area. DJ amuses me in that she has a beesting kit in her saddle bags. After I was stung 30 times on a horse camping trip last summer, I took to carrying an EpiPen just in case. Also, DJ reminds me of me; toting around an emergency kit and all. Only, I keep my stuff in a fanny pack on me. Just in case. Thus, everyone has a nice ride, and everyone is happy.

There's a horse show a few days later, and DJ runs around helping people while feeling just a little bit sorry for herself that she doesn't have a horse to ride. Gray Bar, Jame's gray Arabian filly, goes batshit loading (thank you Jeebsus that my horse is an easy loader!) and thus she goes batshit again in the ring, and James is a prick and blames DJ for it. Asshole! DJ keeps herself busy and thus doesn't actually miss riding in the show as much as the thought.

And the next day, DAj and Amy have the first of their pony birthday parties. Unfortunately, they don't become instant millionaires overnight, and it's hardly a rousing success because a little boy tries to feed Bandit a pink flower, a little girl goes postal about wearing the cowboy hat and the pony takes a shit in the driveway. And just when they're about to clean up the manure, the mother of the birthday child shows up and announces cake and ice cream, which starts the mad rush for the house. And get this, three -- not just one -- three children step squish squish into horseshit and run into a house with white carpet. Mother freaks. Yeah, well, listen lady, you have a child, white carpets should have been the least of your concern. Luckily for Amy and DJ, they still get paid, and it's time to bring Bandit home so DJ can hustle her butt back to her house for the dinner with the copper. Who turns out not to be too bad for an old guy. And the best part is, he's got a horse. A horse named Major. But then what turns out to be bad about him is that Gran seems to really really and I mean really like him. Doh!

this really peeves DJ off. I mean, how dare her widowed grandmother who has spent the last decade caring for her, fall head over heels in love with a man. It's positively obscene! And it gets worse the next day because they're already going out on dates even though they've only met each other a few hours earlier. And DJ gets accused of stealing a bridle and a saddle, so she flips out like ninja. The pony party seems to go better this time, and the girls even get lemonade. And when DJ gets home, she finds out her grandmother clearly is so lovesick, she doesn't even pay attention when DJ says she slapped some little kid upside the head. Clearly, Gran is coming down with the LoveBug Fever and doesn't give a shit about anything else. Crikey!

DJ evenbtually runs into James. Turns out, he's the one that said she stole the tack. So she threatens to cut the bitch. Unfortunately, Bridget finds them in a stall, and puts both of them on probation. This doesn't help DJ much because she's already had a fight with her mom that was probably nearly homicidal, and her grandmother keeps dating the policeman. DJ goes home, sulks, and finally has a Come to Jesus moment, which is the first time it's happened (and it's page 101) which is a vastly different scenario to Tricia who can't seem to stop her prayerfests long enough to take a breath. And she goes to bed feeling sorry for herself.

Things just don't get better the next day because Meg comes up lame, so she can't have her jumping lesson, and their pony parties all get canceled because of chicken pox. And DJ has to go to a barbecue at Joe the Policeman's house, where she meets his kids and grandkids. And then holy shit, but Gran just about shatters her world because Joe has a big announcement to make ... that he and Gran are gonna tie the knot. NOOOOO! Say it isn't soooooo! DJ is so heartbroken by this, she up and leaves the party, forcing her mother to come chasing after her in the car. DJ's mom lays the smackdown on her, no teaching lessons and no riding for pleasure for two whole weeks. But DJ still has to go to her job and clean tack and muck stalls. And Gran and Joe call the wedding off, which serves to infuriate Lindy. Well, shit!

DJ feels like shit, and so she wakes up in the middle of the night and contemplates runningoff with her life saving of $382. But before she can do that, she has to go to work at the Academy. She workrides a new horse named Patches and leaves Bridget a note. She then goes and gets all her money out of the bank, and prepares to run off. But before she leaves entirely, she goes back to the Academy to say goodbye to some horses and runs into James. James' life isn't hunky-dory either, sure his parents are rich, but his mom's an absentee mother and his dad is a drunkard. And they want to ship him off to military school because Daddy Dear thinks James needs "discipline" so he's pretty bummed about that because he can't see his horse. And worse, his father's going to sell her! Oh noes! And James finally confesses that he's just jealous of DJ and he hid the saddle, and all that shit. Well, at least they seem to be friends now.

DJ goes home, and her mother finds her with a sleeping bag and a backpack full of her world goods. Oh great, she's gonna get the smackdown now. But yeah, anyway, Gran's still going to marry Joe, and they're buying a house right near the Academy. Bridget grounds DJ from riding period for a month, but says she'll give her plenty of other work. James tells DJ they're not selling Gray Bar, but that she's going with him to the military school. DJ goes to the wedding and afterwards Joe tells DJ that since he's retiring, the horse he rides on patrol is also retiring, and that he'll sell him to DJ for $400 so she'll finally have her own horse. Hooray!

I don't think there's a lot of points of interest for this book. At least, I didn't pick up anything while reading that seemed particularly noteworthy.

So, that was Book #1 of the High Hurdles series. Like I said before, the God thing really got toned down from the Golden Filly series. Don't get me wrong, it's still there, but not so in your face preachy-like. DJ only prays to go maybe twice, and both times they come pretty late in the book. Earlier I compared Gran to my own religious grandparents, and she seems to always be reading a Bible, but she doesn't stand there preaching at anyone. Even when her own daughter starts screeching that she doesn't want to be preached at, Gran didn't come across as a religious fanatic or anything like that. I think it added it's share of layers to the relationships in the book, and really, it was an enjoyable read without coming across as some kind of Christian doctrine in disguise. Book #2 is on request, so hopefully I'll get that within a day or two. But for right now, I think I'm going to take advantage of the fact that I requested some other books from the library, and get some non-horsey reading in.