FLICKA 3: THE RECKONING

FLICKA 3: THE RECKONING COUNTRY PRIDE
2012

When Toby and Flicka are hired at a stable, Kelly, the owner's teenage daughter, quickly bonds with the wild horse. Despite her mother's disapproval, she hopes to break Flicka for an upcoming competition. However with the competition fast approaching, a dishonest rival trainer, and a growing fear they may be forced to sell the stable, Toby must intervene to save the day. 

IT HAS HAPPENED. YOU GUYS. YOU GUYSSSSS. LOOK AT IT. LOOK.

Okay, wait. Wait. Let's just take a calm, deep breath. So, I wandered up to a Redbox after some solid life drama that I need a vacation from experiencing. Redbox, I said. Entertain me! And what does it give me? It gives me freakin' FLICKA 3: THE RECKONING COUNTRY PRIDE.

And then I stumbled all over myself to rent it. I am the reason movies like this exist. It's something I've come to accept. So, let's talk about it!

As you may have guessed already, Flicka is back. Accept here is the set up: the ranch BURNED DOWN. YOU GUYS. How the hell did this happen? Are Carrie and Hank even alive? What does Katy think of all of this? Did she even take some time off from vet school to help out and give a shit? No, all we are told is that the ranch burned down and Toby (from Flicka 2) sprained his ankle. This is shocking. I...well, anyway. So Toby, for some random reason, decides to get another temporary job as barn manager at Cherry Creek, a local eventing barn where all the kids wear collared shirts under cashmere sweaters while they ride. Oh, and they're rebuilding the ranch so Toby has brought all the ranch horses that didn't, I guess, die. Or something.

Enter Kelly. Kelly's dad died, so now she doesn't jump, but she does...just in secret or something. You know how it is. So she's off jumping this horse that belongs to Stephanie Meyers (really?), her former best friend. But Stephanie is blond, and classically enough Kelly can no longer be friends with her now that hormones have come into play over Briggs McBride, fellow rider who is honestly too pretty to be real. Anyway, Stephanie sees Kelly committing this crime and freaks out, letting her mother go to town on Kelly's mom for allowing this to happen. The horror. Why, oh why.

But then Flicka appears, kicking and screaming like The Black Stallion she so clearly wants to be. She kicks some poor guy in the gut and then rears off a trailer, complete with shot of pretty black horse back lit by the sun. Kelly goes into awe. Flicka stops being a little jerk and moseys up to Kelly and does a face plant into Kelly's hands, because of course.

So Toby gives Kelly permission to ride Flicka, and the two forever bond while Stephanie, Briggs and nameless girl train for some team regional whatever some such event. Only one of their riders is hurt, leaving a hole in the team. By this point, Kelly and Flicka are all over each other, and for whatever reason Kelly decides to trick everyone into watching her ride Flicka for the team by insisting she's a new girl on...a horse that is obviously Flicka? Everyone discovers that it's her in about five seconds, but she's allowed on the team because suddenly Flicka is awesome at jumping. Who knew! That Flicka is remarkably multifaceted. (Actually, she insists on being trained in jumping by poking a jump with her hoof and then jumping three oxers in a row.)

And then there is a dance, and Stephanie gets all pissed that Briggs likes Kelly, so she shoves Kelly into the dessert table and ruins her dress. Then they have a collective meltdown and try to match race over the cross country course to predictable disaster. Stephanie falls off and then has another meltdown in the office, pulling the plug on riding for Cherry Creek just as the trainer of the barn up and leaves for Triumph, taking Stephanie and Nameless Girl with her.

Woe!

But Briggs won't leave, so between he and Kelly they come up with a team last minute and enlist Toby to be their trainer. Toby's like, "whoa, I wear cowboy hats!" But naturally he's a great coach despite not knowing what he's talking about. And then there's a really long eventing sequence wherein Cherry Creek actually comes in second to Triumph and Stephanie.

Did you hear that? The antagonist won. What sort of horse movie is this? My faith in horse stories has been shattered.

However, it doesn't really matter because the brilliance of Kelly and Flicka's show jumping round makes Stephanie see the light and the two apologize to each other and are super best friends again, despite hormones and conflicting hair color.

AND THEN. Because this couldn't get weird enough, Toby leaves Cherry Creek to go back to the ranch, which has been fully rebuilt, and he takes Flicka with him. However, in the meantime he's struck up this romance with Kelly's mom and decides to give Flicka's son, THUNDERHEAD, to Kelly. Because he's "two, and can begin training." Ha! Oh, Toby. WHAT ARE YOU DOING? I'm pretty sure he doesn't own that horse. I mean, I can't remember who Toby was in Flicka 2, but I'm going to guess his title doesn't allow him the means to hand people horses for no reason.

And seriously, Thunderhead? Why couldn't this have been Thunderhead's movie? Isn't Flicka a little tired by now?

Nevermind. I'm finished here. Except, apparently, Flicka may not be through with us yet. The last lines of the movie are, basically:

Toby (after giving Thunderhead to Kelly): There's going to be more surprises.
Kelly's Mom: What do you mean?

Yes, Toby, WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

(Well. All of that said and done, Flicka 3 is better than Flicka 2. Like, it's heads, shoulders, and a good portion of torso better than Flicka 2. Please, everyone let's all pretend Flicka 2 never happened.)

Just don't think. It's easier that way. TB#55: Great Expectations.

Great Expectations
Thoroughbred #55
by Karle Dickerson

Can Parker live up to the challenge?

Parker Townsend couldn't be more excited as he sets off for England to train for the Olympics, taking with him two headstrong horses and some very high hopes. At first he's thrilled to see the beautiful country estate where he'll be staying. But it's not too long before he discovers that the English do things very differently from what he's used to. Since he's a guest, he has to listen to whatever his trainers say, no matter how much he disagrees with them. Although Parker worries that this could jeopardize his Olympic dream, he's determined to find a way to prove to everyone, including himself, that he and his horses are Olympic caliber after all.

Maybe it's just me, but I fully expect that horse to do a face plant into the ground as soon as its hind legs ram into that jump. How it got to the jump in the first place with those front hooves is also very mysterious. They look like they were fashioned out of Play-Doh. Also, I'm sure someone with far more expertise can tell me what is going on with that bridle, but it looks odd to me. The drop noseband and the bit are not jiving visually or logically, along with everything else that is going on here. Perhaps this is just me, but Parker ceases to be cute on this cover. Actually, he is almost a complete duplicate of Wolf from the cover of Cindy's Last Hope. The only differences being Wolf is in a jockey's crouch and wearing a collared shirt and a worried, hopeless stare. The color scheme is duplicated as well, because according to this cover artist all men on book covers should wear tan pants and light green shirts. But whatever. We have a book to discuss.

So for reasons I can't remember, Parker is headed off to England to compete in Burghley. I think this decision was made in the cut chapter of Parker's last book, actually, making Thoroughbred that much more entertaining with its random fits of editing. Everyone at Whisperwood, plus Melanie and Christina (which amounts to like six people, max) surprises Parker with a going away party, during which Parker attempts to amuse people and small children are unimpressed. A little girl tells him to shut up and open his present, while Christina sits in the corner and stares at her fingernails in some state of emotional oblivion. These two, you guys. I don't even know what to do with them. If only they'd had some sort of break up sex scenario in the back of Parker's truck before he left for England.

...I am totally going to believe that is what happened from now on. Anyway! So, fresh from that ordeal, Parker gets on a plane headed for Heathrow and is subjected to the horrors of this blond girl who is messy and loud. Granted, I can feel Parker's pain here because no one wants to be stuck in a tube for over seven hours with someone who will not shut up about pointless shit you don't care about, especially when they start chastising you for not using proper British sayings. It is the WC in England, thank you. You Americans and your bathrooms. Go back to the colonies, yank!

Seriously, I would like to say that there isn't a lot of pointless chatter about British slang, but there is and it can't be helped. Upon arriving in England, Parker acts like he's shocked that England is its own country apart from the United States. They drive on the left hand side of the road! They say loo and cheerio all the time. Gasp! They have their own currency and their vending machines only take that currency. WHAT HAS THE WORLD COME TO.

Okay, look. I know there are stupid people in this world. People try to pay with foreign money way more than we logical people know, I'm sure. Hell, the turnpike in Ohio is all with the "Only US Currency" signs plastered all over, suggesting that more than a few people try to throw Canadian coins at the tollbooth workers. But the thing here is that Parker kinda sorta definitely lived in England for most of his formative years. And he's shocked that the cars are driving on "the wrong side" of the road. And that sentence even came with an exclamation point. Let's all feel smug and/or visualize smacking Parker right across the face. It's okay. He deserves it.

So, upon arriving in London, Parker is lured into helping blond girl find her errant passport and his ride presumes he died in flight and abandons him. So Parker tries to scrounge up a cab that will leave the greater London area, of which only one will deign to honor Parker's request. Somehow they pass by Big Ben on their way from the airport to the country, which is quite a mighty detour. It's like twenty miles from Heathrow to Big Ben. Anyway, so Parker meets up with the Chillinghams, who are hosting Parker as a favor to Lavinia. Don't worry, you guys. The Chillinghams are super sweet and way nicer than Lavinia, which Parker goes on and on about because he hates his parents with an intense passion that honestly worries me. Down at the barn, Parker instantly starts acting like a complete ass hat the second someone talks to him, because he is an insecure goob who can't talk to others like a normal person. No, not Parker. Everyone is trying to find fault in him immediately and no one will ever give him a chance to blah blah blah.

Basically, the whole book is Parker acting like an arrogant twat and people giving him the side eye, which only enrages him into acting more like an arrogant twat. Then some kids talk bad about him behind his back and that's the beginning of the end for Parker and England. Or so we'd all like to think.

So, his lessons go horribly because, well, Parker is an arrogant twat. I mean, really, what were we all expecting? Then he falls a lot and people point and laugh. And Parker won't listen to anyone's advice, naturally, because Parker is a non-listener of advice. It is like his chosen profession. So Dalton, guy who was going to help Parker in England before deciding that Parker's attitude isn't worth it, runs off to a clinic after saying Parker should enter Merebrook, a tiny competition to get his feet wet.

Bah. A tiny competition you say? Parker is better than that! Or whatever. I don't even know anymore. But he goes and he insists on taking Ozzie with him and then he's like why am I such an idiot? Ozzie can't even jump things, much less act stable for five seconds. This is the horse that spends a whole chapter gallivanting around England by himself. Good going, Parker.

Oh, yeah, and the blond girl is Fiona, the Chillingham's granddaughter, who is now staying with them. Parker is sure that she is out to ruin his life. Also, the maid doesn't like him. And the assistant trainer doesn't like him. And the kids think he's stupid and fake. It's SPLENDID.

At Merebrook, it turns out that everyone on the face of the earth is there. And then Foxy steps in a badger hole and is scratched, leaving Parker with Ozzie the Unstable. After a gloriously horrible dressage test (but that's always a throwaway event, apparently, because no one likes dressage), Parker says SCREW THIS and decides that after this event they will leave England with its bangers and mash and coin currency. COIN DOLLARS ARE STUPID, says Parker. He is OUT. But he decides to just have fun during cross country, and miraculously this is the key. Moment of enlightenment achieved! Parker can now progress on to the next round.

Show jumping also goes well, and by some miracle Parker wins the show. Only during all of this he runs into Alexander the Grape, an old school friend with a fondness for sweets, who tells him he's an arrogant twat and he has always been an arrogant twat. Also? So was Dalton! That's why the two never get along, or something. And then the assistant trainer calls Parker an arrogant twat, and Parker agrees. Then Parker tells Dalton what an arrogant twat he is, and Dalton accepts Parker's self-realization and decides to train him.

I am not sure how winning the show caused Parker to realize that he's an insecure moron with an arrogant streak, but it did. Now we can move on to other things, like oddities.

• Great Expectations. Is this like satire? Just what the hell is this?
• Parker cannot do math. At least, he can't convert inches into centimeters, which would be a sad day for the American educational system if he hadn't been taught in English private school. 
• At one point, Parker hears someone speaking French and German during his walk around the course at Merebrook and later someone says that lots of international competition will be there this year. It's only then that he realizes, ah, those must have been international riders. OH. YOU THINK?

That's really it this time. I was just pretty astonished by Parker's massive display of stupidity in this installment. How he even clothes himself in the morning is anyone's guess.

Next: Lyssa. All glorious 172 pages of her.

Thoroughbred #50: Team Player

Team Player 

by Alice Leonhardt 

2001 

It seems that Team Player had the misfortune of being too long when it was a Word document sitting on some editor's hard drive, and instead of requesting a little editing to trim the story down to an appropriate length, the editor decided it would be easier to highlight the entirety of the last chapter and hit the delete button.

Oh, Thoroughbred. It's this dedication to quality that makes me love you so.

Will Parker make the team? 

Parker Townsend and his Thoroughbred mare, Foxglove, have proven that they have the talent to compete in the Olympics in combined training. But they still haven't made the team. Parker can't figure it out. He's won more events than any of his competitors, and Foxy is in top form. No jump is too high for them, no dressage course is too technical. So why haven't the Olympic stewards asked him to join the team? 

His trainer, Samantha McLean, knows why. Parker isn't a team player. He always does his best and usually wins, but sometimes that's not enough. In order to compete, Parker must show the Olympic stewards that he can help out his team members and ride for the team.

This summary is a tad exaggerated. Parker has in fact not "won more events than any of his competitors," nor does he "usually" win. The sad state of affairs is more subdued, but that doesn't make for good summary writing, apparently. The fact of the matter is that Lyssa has actually been the winner of all the events the summary seems to think Parker has been winning, therefore making the question of why Lyssa has been picked to be on the team and not Parker far less of a head scratcher.

But whatevs. Let's get down to business.

Parker is super busy. He's got responsibilities (horses to ride, Foxy to train, Kaitlin to yell at, mountains of tack to clean because we all know tack is forever dirty even two seconds after it's been scrubbed to death), unappreciative girlfriends to placate (Christina), parents to avoid (The Townsends, in all their awesome hilarity), and so many things to worry about (the Olympics, school, maybe buying a new horse with no money). It's hard to be Parker, okay? 

Because he has no money, he's been reduced to teaching kids how to pull the manes of their school ponies, which is a tremendous lesson in patience while Samantha is persistently nagging him to buy a young horse while trying to hide the magazine that proclaims Lyssa the next Olympic horse goddess. Lyssa has gotten on the USET team's short list, and Parker has not. Parker attempts to not be bitter, and fails. Samantha makes a casual remark about that chip on his shoulder and then whirls off to be unproductive somewhere else as Parker drags his feet to Whitebrook to remark about how his relationship with Christina has changed, and it's not for the better.

You see, Christina and Parker never see each other anymore, both aiming for their completely unreasonable dreams because everyone knows that after the age of eighteen it's standard practice to give up on yourself and help children you kind of know and/or created accomplish greatness. In other words, life loses all meaning when you're an adult. Parker tries to seek support from Christina regarding this whole Lyssa development (come on, people, we know you all just want to bitch about her. Just do it already) and gets nothing but, "That's great! They're still accepting young riders!" Of which they have one, so do they need more? Just saying.

Parker trudges off to class and then goes home to Townsend Acres, where he decides that it's finally time to suck up to his parents and try to get back into his trust fund. Brad, because nothing is better than racing -- nothing -- has cut off Parker and made him drive an unreliable truck and be poor until Parker shucks off his Olympics dreams and gets into the family business. Only all he's greeted with is a buffet table of eggs and bacon, which Parker falls upon like a ravenous honey badger while Lavinia looks on in sheer horror and Brad mutters about how a Townsend doesn't wear jeans during breakfast. They wear suits and diamonds, naturally. 

Fresh from that comical interlude, Parker runs off to Townsend Acres Version Warmbloods so he can look at a horse that is outside of his price range, because Samantha doesn't get that he has no money. That's when they meet Wizard of Oz, or Ozzie, burned out stadium jumper who has no interest in doing work ever again. Naturally Samantha's all ooooh, this one! And so they take Ozzie on trial, but not before they look down their noses at Ozzie's successful and therefore "arrogant" and obviously horrible owner.

There's a three-day event of some such that Parker wins, attracting the attention of Captain Donnelly of USET fame, which leads to Captain Donnelly deciding to move his two short list USET people (Lyssa and a Jeff who is of no import) to Whisperwood so he can stalk Parker and cause him great emotional turmoil. Parker drops the ball when put on the spot, but then manages to save things when he's invited to a lesson with Lyssa and Jeff, only to drop the ball again when he gets all internally uppity about being told what to do. Nobody knows Foxy like Parker!

You know, it's a real wonder that Christina and Parker couldn't make it through this book. They are so perfect for each other. Unfortunately they split. Or "take a break" after Parker misses a date and decides that hey, he won't try to call or do anything about it until later. How do these people not have cell phones? This is 2001!

Well anyway, Parker takes Ozzie out to mull his decision about whether or not to go further into debt in order to buy him and Lyssa, giver of bad advice, says that he totally should. Just stick him in a round pen (which doesn't wind up working, of course) and all will be fine! Oh, if only we could all be sponsored like Lyssa! What a magical life she leads. I'm shocked Parker hasn't gone crazy. I really am.

So Rolex rolls around. Samantha and Kaitlin strong arm Parker into going to the party beforehand, which Parker is of course staunchly against. Parties might mean fun is afoot, and as we all know fun is the work of the devil! I'm surprised Samantha even wants to take part in this horror show, but I suppose that she is an adult, and her life no longer has meaning or ambition. All the more time for parties! 

Parker goes to the party, only to run into his parents, who have come to the realization that there are rich people around the Rolex also! Let's mingle! Brad remarks that it's quaint that the winner gets a Rolex watch. Oh, if only Parker were into racing; he could have all the Rolex watches he desires should he give up on this fool's errand. Mission to destroy Parker's confidence accomplished, so back to mingling!

God, that man is just so awesome.

Samantha gets Parker's mood back on track on the first day of Rolex, and he completely crushes the dressage test and skyrockets into third. Then the cross country comes along the second day, and there's much angst. It is hot! Horses are dropping like flies. The jumps are terrific and difficult. If only Parker would listen to advice. Samantha is here to help with her so-so wisdom! Captain Donnelly wants him to do well, but not invite him on the team so Parker tosses his advice and goes for broke. Foxy barely makes it through the course in an effort that puts them in first place, but this effort is too much for the horse and there is pandemonium and tears and screaming and oxygen tanks and hypodermic needles and Parker feels like a total loser because his horse is probably dying right there at Rolex and...

That's the end of the book. No closure for you! That's just the way Thoroughbred rolls.

In all seriousness, Alice Leonhardt was awesome and supplied fans with the cut chapter. I once had it in my possession, and I once knew what it contained. But that was in 2001, so I've clearly forgotten it entirely and have lost the chapter in all the computers I've left in my wake.

That all said, despite the mysterious ending, Team Player is a solid installment in the series. Granted, I have a hard time wrapping my head around Parker trying to get on the USET team, especially when he has these hilarious moments of enlightenment about how he's competing against riders who are worlds better than him at Rolex and he's still expecting to get short listed. 

Maybe this series was always about supporting delusions of grandeur. It's all starting to make sense now!

#51, Distance Runner, aka Christina Discovers California And Fails to Appreciate It, is up next. 

Dear God, please bring me a 12-gauge.

Sylvester
1985

When I was a young child, I would comb through the videos at Hastings for what felt like hours until I had a stack of horse movies I may or may not have seen. Sylvester was one I stumbled across when I was about twelve, which is why I'm using the old artwork for this movie.

It occurs to me now that this movie was probably more than I could handle as a twelve-year-old, because Sylvester is your Cinderella-style horse story surrounded by a crusty Texas attitude. There is cursing, fighting, horse abuse, alcoholism, underage sex in a stall, and attempted rape. However, there is also magical wild horse-girl bonding and totally random western girl turned three-day eventer. And not just three-day eventing. Rolex Kentucky three-day eventing. That's right. She doesn't gradually enter the world of eventing. She makes the jump from working in a stock yard to riding at Rolex.

Charlie is a sixteen-year-old orphan. She takes care of her little brothers in a trailer, breaks horses and rounds up cattle for Mr. Foster's stock yard, and spends a lot of time telling this Matt character to back the hell off already. Matt (Michael Schoeffling of Sixteen Candles and Wild Hearts Can't be Broken) insists that he's going to marry Charlie after she's done with her horse phase, although I'm pretty sure Charlie is unaware of these plans because she's too busy falling for this fleabitten gray--Sylvester. She succeeds at turning him into a cow pony, but he's way too big for the work and eventually her asshole coworker spooks him into jumping a fence and getting both of them fired.

Due to her sudden unemployment, the state is eager to take Charlie away from her brothers and stick her in a typing course. Charlie, not wanting to be a secretary, runs to Mr. Foster, who is drunk and not exactly a logical choice as a safe haven. Her brothers, however, insist on moving in with a drunk (and say so, vehemently) and the choice is made. Mr. Foster suddenly becomes their surrogate father, and has little intention of dropping his Cuervo habit. Around this time, Charlie decides to start jumping Sylvester over anything and everything, upsetting Matt and Mr. Foster for various vague reasons. Why can't she just get married to Matt and stop being annoying? God, life is so hard.

Eventually, Matt realizes that he's not going to get anywhere with Charlie unless he, like, attempts to support her dream of Olympic gold. This method works perfectly, and he's suddenly eating dinner with Charlie's highly dysfunctional, partially drunk, family. Then, all of a sudden, Mr. Foster knows everything that can be known about three-day eventing because he was in the cavalry. So he gives in and starts to mentor Charlie, leading her to her first event, the Rolex.

Granted, she's competing in preliminary, and back then it was possible to do this. Also, this is still obviously absolutely and completely insane. Also, Mr. Foster makes at least one massive disparaging comment about how stupid this plan is, but is bullied into line by Charlie insisting that he's killing her dreams. So they pack up Sylvester and head to Kentucky, where Matt gets pissed if anything male even glances at Charlie and Charlie proceeds to impress just about everyone.

This all comes to a head with Matt and random USET member getting into a brawl in the middle of a cocktail party. Because Texans solve problems with their fists! There's a big issue made out of how Charlie doesn't belong with these people, and how she needs to get Sylvester sold for the sake of her family, but in the meantime has been just so gosh darn impressive she's probably never going to see Texas again.

It's my opinion that she probably doesn't.

That's Sylvester. You pick it up because it's a horse movie, you stay for the crusty Texas alcoholics, no matter how unrealistic the plot.

Last Junior Year before revising your career goals.

Last Junior Year
by Barbara Morgenroth
1978

It's been a while since I've delved into the 1970s, but after reading The Perfect Distance I was inclined to hunt this book down.

Kim wanted to ride, ride really well; well enough to make the U.S. Equestrian Team. But the only thing she had going for her was her horse, Foxy. Her father didn't really approve of her love of horses and refused to spend the money that would give her good teachers and allow her to go to the best shows.

At seventeen, a senior in high school and about to begin her last official year as a junior rider, she was desperate. She needed a big break. And she got it in an unexpected way. An assistant judge at a small show, who liked her and liked her horse even thought the main judge didn't, suggested she call an Emory Reis. Over her parents protests, she did. And suddenly she had a teacher -- a free teacher, who asked only for real dedication to horses and riding. Eventually, because the inner circle of riders form a close group who help each other when the help can go both ways, she not only had lessons but a place to ride and a friend to ride with, to practice jumping with, and eventually to do the winter circuit in Florida with.

But along with really learning to ride, Kim learned almost too much about the politics and economics of riding. Dreams, she found, must sometimes die in order that possible things, and maybe better things, can happen.

Not the best summary, mainly because it reads like a brief book report. Also, that is the book. There's nothing to say now that the summary hasn't already pointed out. Kim is obsessed with trying to get into the U.S. Equestrian Team. She has a number of factors that sort of make this dream impossible to accomplish: she isn't rich, has only one horse, her horse is sort of green, and she sort of isn't that good. She also has parents that are not at all interested in horses, and think she should (gasp!) go to college. So she has her family to contend with on an almost regular basis. The story rambles through Kim's attempts to take the right advice and improve herself through her last junior year before aiming for USET, school and education be damned.

There are many things that I liked about this book, most of them having to do with how freakishly knowledgeable Barbara Morgenroth comes across as being. There's a directness in the dialogue and the characters that I really liked, and Kim isn't a typical horse story character. She's obstinate, but she's not annoying in her determination to realize her dream of riding for USET. In terms of her horse, Foxfire, he's good, actually better than she is, but he isn't a Super Special OMG Amazing Wonder Horse. The secondary characters are all appropriately developed and a little quirky. So that's all good.

What I liked even better (and I'm about to spoil this for you, if the summary didn't do that already) is that the book's whole purpose is to point out that sometimes your dreams are hilariously wrong and you've romanticized your end goal to a point that it will never live up to your expectations. So when you realize this, suck it up and act like an adult. Kim gets invited to try out for USET, but before she can even get to the trials it's made wildly apparent to her that USET isn't where she wants to be. Mainly because they point out to her that there are tons of riders available to them. What they need, unfortunately, is horses. Good horses. Horses like, say, Foxfire. So will Kim kindly shove off, but leave behind her horse, please? Kim doesn't really have to think about that very hard. USET is firmly ruined to her, and she decides to take her career and apply it at the barn of the (formerly mentioned from summary) assistant judge, Jeff (who I was sort of in love with by the end of the book) who wants a rider. So, yes, the whole book is a lesson in getting to your goal and figuring out what to do when you realize your goal is a deep, meaningless void. Fun!

What I didn't like was that, for as much as I liked the book, it felt like it was scratching the surface with the story. You like the characters, but you don't know the characters. Kim likes horses. She's a feminist. She sticks to her principles. That's it. The book isn't very big on description; in fact, it's basically an endless parade of horse scenes or mulling over horse career aspirations, leading us to yet more horse industry facts. It was a barage. Seriously, I wanted this book to back off a little in that department and give me a little plot, which was lacking. There is no closure with Kim's parents, Kim is remarkably unable to think of anything other than horse career goals, and if there was any one horse story character that I desperately wanted to have a hobby, it was this girl. Friends, even. Kim has no hobbies, she has no friends. She has only a dream and determination, which is all classic horse story character, so at the end of the day, she's not that enjoyable to be around. You sort of want to scream at her to go buy a pair of shoes that would never survive one walk through a barn. I mean, it's okay to own clothes that you can't ride in. Seriously. It is. Kim, of course, refuses to accept this basic fact of life.

Ultimately, I classify this as a good book. I liked it, despite some rather tiresome problems that are both expected and, well, smothering. This book nearly burned me out on horses, that's how crazy obsessed Kim is, which would be unfortunate given that I'm going to the barn first thing tomorrow. However, I enjoyed the realism and I enjoyed the ending, and it's really not a special horse and determined girl win everything and are loved by all book. So if you want to take a look at Last Junior Year, head over to your library. This one is out of print, and it looks like buying a copy online will run you over $30. I feel I need to clarify now: this may be a better horse book, but it's not worth $30. It's library worthy, but if you find it for five bucks in a used book shop, go for it.

Take the Reins: calling to the horse lover in every tween fashionita's soul.

Take the Reins
Canterwood Crest #1
by Jessica Burkhart
2009

A few months ago I had a weird urge to find something akin to Gossip Girl meets Thoroughbred, and if this book was aimed toward young adults instead of middle grade readers, this would have been it.

Okay, here's the synopsis, because two previous posts including the exact same synopsis is not enough:

When Sasha Silver and her horse, Charm, arrive on the campus of the elite Canterwood Crest Academy, Sasha knows that she's in trouble. She's not exactly welcomed with open arms. One group of girls in particular is used to being the best, the brightest, and the prettiest on the team, and when Sasha shows her skills in the arena, the girls' claws come out.

Sasha is determined to prove that she belongs at Canterwood. Will she rise to the occasion and make the advanced riding team by the end of her first semester? Or will the pressure send Sasha packing?

In a lot of ways, this book reminds me of The It Girl, the spin-off of Gossip Girl. Only it's not a product placement machine, because I'm pretty sure the goal of The It Girl is to make every girl who can't afford Manolo Blahniks by the time she's 15 feel ratty and poor. Canterwood Crest has one foot in this socially upscale boarding school world, and one foot planted in a horse stall. This series is the flighty, catty social structure of rich teens slamming into what's supposed to be the responsible and sentimental background of horse ownership. You'd think some serious issues would pop up because of this, but lucky for us horses and the social elite are well-versed in each other.

Sasha is the new girl at Canterwood Crest, recently plucked out of her public middle school because her local riding instructor determined that she had little else to teach her. Luckily for Sasha, Canterwood Crest is also rigorous academically, otherwise I'd think that her parents are easily led and all she wants to do with herself is ride. Sasha immediately starts off on the bad foot, letting her spooking horse (Charm, who I keep mentally picturing as a gray when he is actually chestnut, and I think I have the racehorse Silver Charm to blame for this) get away from her and cause an accident with Heather, the resident antagonist. Because of this mishap, Sasha has more or less painted a target on her back, and Heather is shooting for her big time. Matters are not helped when Heather finds out that Sasha is a fairly accomplished rider, and she feels threatened when Sasha makes the intermediate team with most of the other characters in the book.

Thus starts the pranks. Heather is sort of intense about being a bitch, and these pranks go from fake accidents to switching stalls to sabotage to mind games. All you need to know about how intense Heather is occurs when Sasha walks into Charm's stall and finds her friend Callie hunched in the corner of the stall whispering about how Sasha should really look after her tack. Because I guess Heather has a history with tack sabotage. Sasha has a lot on her hands here in terms of a girl antagonist, but now we will focus on Zac Efron.

There is a boy in this book, because you have to remember that this series is a hybrid. Our Thoroughbred characters never gave boys the time of day because they literally had no room in their brains to ponder anything other than horses. For books like The It Girl, there is nothing but boys, competition over boys, and family dysfunction that usually occurs because of a boy. For Canterwood Crest, there is room for both boys and horses. This might sound shocking, but dear Sasha is probably the most normal twelve-year-old, horse obsessed rich girl I've ever read about. She watches tv, she comprehends wearing clothes that are not ready made for barn work, and she gets the basic concept of a crush. And she has a thing for Zac Efron, so when a Zac Efron look alike comes bounding along she's stumbling all over herself. They have a film class together, and by the joy of arranged seats they get to know each other in a youthfully bashful sort of way.

The book reaches its climax with two events: a winter dance (wherein the Zac Efron look alike dances with Sasha) and the test for the advanced team. The results are the most predictable thing about the book; I don't need to repeat them here because if you've read a horse book you know what happens. However, the results for the seventh grade advanced team are a means to setting up the rest of the series. Catty girls have to mix with the responsible girls to become teammates...not friends. I'm actually more interested in the rest of the series than I ultimately was with this book because I think the concept of nice girl and the antagonist girl having to work together to produce a good team result hasn't exactly been done before (at least successfully) in a middle grade horse book. Typically, the two characters are always pitted against each other in a tired recycled plotline that leads up to a final show, and I have a hope that this will be a breath of fresh air in that if they're ultimately encouraged to act as a team then they'll focus their pissy relationship outside of the ring, which has to be more engaging at this point.

• I've said it before about first time authors: expect craziness. This book was low on the crazy factor, in that there wasn't any definite plot point that felt sticky to me. However, there did seem to be an unnecessary amount of scenes. Such as the section when Paige's mom goes on and on about rearranging their dorm furniture, culminating in the decision to move their beds five inches to allow more space. It's like...well, yeah. You could press the beds right against the wall, but then why are we talking about this? What's the point? That was my main question for a few areas of the book.

• A lack of pertinent description is probably my big question mark throughout. Much of the description is done well, but then when it comes down to action I'm left feeling little to nothing, leading me ultimately to rereading a scene to figure out what the hell just happened. Consider: before the lone horse show in the book, Sasha finds the groom holding Charm, who is not moving. Sasha has a little moment of panic about this when I was wondering what her deal was. Groom holding horse, horse not moving. Is the horse on the ground? What is going on? Lots of horses just stand there, so when Sasha runs up in a panic about things after a description of Charm standing still...I'm totally lost. As it turns out, Charm's mane was chewed up and his braids were ruined, resulting in Sasha simply buzzing his mane off in a rush. And that was it.

• I like Sasha. She doesn't come off as totally superior to Heather in all ways imaginable, which is one of my big problems with horse books in general. Heather is given reasons to act the way she does, and while those reasons are slightly predictable, at least there are reasons. In terms of riding, they feel fairly equal to me on that front, which is another plus.

• Equal character development. Most of the time, I always feel like horse books focus too much on the one main character and the horse. Jessica spends time giving character to Callie, Paige, and even the dorm adviser. I really appreciated this.

• A few typos. Nothing hugely problematic, but noticeable.

Okay, to sum up: I liked it. I guess that's obvious when I don't post a full recap. As a horse book, it's better than a good portion of middle grade books out there. As a cliquey Gossip Girl sort of book, that isn't my area of expertise. The only thing I can say there is that it thankfully did not try to sell Manolo Blahniks to seventh graders.

That said, I'll be looking out for the next one.

A Horse Of His Own just doesn't roll off the tongue.

A Horse for the Summer
Sandy Lane Stables #1
by Michelle Bates

These horsey summer books are endless, aren't they?

When Tom is left a prize-winning showjumper for the summer, things don't turn out quite as he'd hoped. Chancey is wild and unpredictable and Tom is forced to start training him in secret. But the days of summer are numbered and Chancey isn't Tom's to keep forever. At some point, he will have to give him back...

After reading a decent horse book, I have to stumble back into a book that hits every horse story cliché imaginable. It's just routine now. Luckily for me, I picked up the first in the Sandy Lane Stables series.

One thing that stands out about the Sandy Lane Stables series is it isn't solely aimed at the female demographic. Sure, most of the other horse books I've read for this blog include men and boys somehow, proving that men and boys do actually ride horses, but those books are almost always told from a female perspective, and are aimed at girls. Even Dylan's Choice was told by Christina. This series manages to indicate that boys do exist in the horse world, and can be more than just the main character's boyfriend (or horribly beautiful and awesome sort of antagonist, as the case may be).

That aside, I'm not exaggerating about how this book hits (and hits hard) every horse story plot device and contrived storyline ever dreamed up. I should create a list at this point. An abbreviated list could be:

1. Abused horse
2. Main character who takes matters into his/her hands, and is eventually rewarded for it because they are ultimately correct, and those who have every right to be pissed are ultimately wrong
3. Flat antagonist with little to no motivation for bitchiness
4. Miraculous change in said abused horse, suddenly becoming the most fantastic of horses
5. "The Horse of Her Own" storyline, wherein the main character receives a horse for free despite having little to no financial capability to take care of said horse, and everyone seems excited and willing to go along with this completely ridiculous idea.

I'll stop before I get too ahead of myself. This book isn't horrible, but it does fall face first into all of these problems. Luckily for it, I guess I was just in a good mood when I read it, and you can't really rip to shreds such a simple story and feel good about it afterward. Therefore let's move on to the plot.

Tom is super excited, you guys. His bratty cousin is leaving for the summer and she has decided to give him her horse, a "champion" named Chancey. This is falling at a good time for Sandy Lane, who has a lame horse and really needs another lesson horse to fill the void. Sandy Lane isn't exactly financially sound, and Nick and Sarah, the owners, decide to let Tom board Chancey at the stable in return for making him a lesson horse. Tom is thrilled by this arrangement, and goes off to be perfect and the model working student for the stable.

There's a group of working students (of differing riding talent, and Tom is naturally the best) that the series centers around. They aren't really important to mention in detail in this entry, but Alex is Tom's best friend and fellow male, so he's sort of around occasionally when Tom isn't busy being self absorbed with his new horse, who arrives with much fanfare, dashing Tom's hopes to tiny pieces when it turns out his cousin, Georgiana, has ruined him. Chancey is a nervous wreck who can't be trusted as a lesson horse, much to everyone's disappointment. Because of this, Nick goes against his wife's orders and goes to an auction with Tom, buying a somewhat neglected horse because he has an addiction to auctions and should really stay away. He can't, buys something, and then walks it home because they've refused to bring a trailer, thinking that if they can't transport a horse home easily that would dissuade him from buying something.

Nick quickly becomes obsessed with this new horse, and as a result he has little time to help Tom out with Chancey, who is still being a little crazy. Tom, who has promised Nick that he won't do anything stupid (ie. ride the horse alone), decides that the only way he can get Chancey ready for the summer shows is to ride him alone early in the morning, Cindy style. This is what Tom does, and Chancey starts to improve, tricking Nick into thinking he's actually just a preternaturally intelligent/talented horse. Only then Nick catches Tom in the midst of an early morning training session, and Nick is pretty pissed. Tom is sort of an asshole about this, figuring he was justified in his actions, right up to the point that Chancey dumps his ass and sprints off. Nick flat out tells him that the horse shouldn't have been trained alone by a novice (I grinned at this), and they find Chancey and all is well. Tom enters the local show on another horse, but decides to go along with Alex's plan to suddenly switch the horses out just before the show, because Tom is so right and Nick will magically understand what Tom's been doing when they break every rule Nick has set up.

I love these plot devices, because they are so irritating and impossible. That whole "we'll make so and so understand because he was just like us when he was our age" or whatever. It happens in almost every Thoroughbred book, and it happens here. So Tom winds up showing Chancey at the last minute, and wins the show, and because of this Nick actually says that he would have done the same thing. Tom has proved his point, and Nick is instantly not angry. Let this be a lesson to every young person: you can only get out of being punished for breaking rules if you are awesome and victorious always. If you can't win, you're going to get your ass handed to you.

So then Georgiana comes back to ride Chancey in the big summer show. This is apparently her only motive for coming back. She just wants to be a jealous bitch and throw her weight around, so Tom has to give up Chancey. Georgiana, for some reason, keeps riding Chancey at Sandy Lane, being bitchy and impossible while Tom reverts into total perfection mode. Georgiana rides Chancey at the big show, completely failing. Alex comes in sixth, and Tom has the audacity to think this is encouraging for him and the formerly lame horse, Feather. At this point, I always find it irritating when someone else does moderately well and the main character is all "oh, yay, perhaps I have a shot of doing well too!" We know you're going to win, Tom. So do you. And he does.

Moving on, Georgiana has to go be stupid again, riding Chancey out to the beach during high tide, because she's too stuck up and flat to pay attention to the tide sheet that Nick mentioned to everyone earlier. Tom, being perfect, realizes what she's done and goes out to rescue her. He rescues her, and then goes out to rescue Chancey, which involves swimming across a channel to the shore. Everyone is saved, except Tom falls off and whacks his head and falls unconscious. He wakes up at home, where Georgiana tells him out of the blue that she never really wanted to ride, and her father is tired of keeping the horse, so she's giving Chancey to Tom so she can take up ballet. Everyone has a collective yay! moment, and that's that.

• Tom "crouches" over Chancey's withers during a canter. Not half-seat or two-point...crouching. I find this interesting, because if I tried that in front of my own instructor he'd ask me what I thought I was doing. And then I'd probably fall off.
  

• Why is everyone talking about clipping a horse's winter coat when it's mid-May?

So, it's your silly, completely outrageous, not at all possible horse story plot. The usual. The next one is Runaway Pony, where Jess (of the working student group) takes the reins.

As it turns out, love can cure everything!

Star in Danger
Thoroughbred #37
by Alice Leonhardt
Published: 1999

I was extremely reticent to move on to this book after Without Wonder, mainly because I can't really handle it when Alice Leonhardt writes Christina and she tends to turn Brad into a chaotic mess stuck somewhere between a serious, well-deserved power trip and drunkenness. I'll get to that later, because really, this book made me cackle out loud on several occasions.

I really dislike this cover for a multitude of very obvious reasons that Claire already pointed out in her review. Plus, it looks like Star is shying at the pot of flowers in the lower right corner. Like, holy crap, petunias! Unfortunately, this is totally in character for Star. He's a nut case.

Will Christina ever see Star again?

Christina Reese is worried. She's been taking care of Wonder's Star ever since his dam, Wonder, died. Now Star has been sent to Townsend Acres, and Christina misses him terribly. She dreamed of eventing Star in the Olympics on day, but Brad Townsend has already started training him to race.

The only way for Christina to be near her colt is to work with Brad. But Star has changed since he left Whitebrook. The once sweet and gentle colt has become wild and difficult to manage. Can Christina save her beloved Star from being ruined?

Essentially: Special horse needs special treatment, but gets smacked with reality by dastardly, yet special, antagonist, thus the special horse prefers his special treatment that his special human deals out with special treats and specialness. Got it. After this book, I really am tired of the word special.

Okay, all that said, Alice should have stuck with Melanie. The last time she attempted Christina, we had Christina's Courage, and we know what a screwed up effort that was. However, I will say that Alice did a better job of it this time around, but it was touch and go there at the beginning because Christina is not willing to put up with this any longer, people. She wants her special horse back at his special farm now, and no dallying is going to placate her.

So we start off this installment yet another six months to a year after Without Wonder, or something like that. Really, all you need to know is that Christina is now 15. Parker is 17, Melanie is almost 16, etc. I guess I only mention their ages because I am always so shocked when the series skips years, given that it just spent twelve books on three months of time. More or less. I'm still desperately trying to adjust to these people actually being teenagers, and I've had a rather hard time of it. Anyway, it's March and everyone is eagerly anticipating Miss America giving birth to yet another foal that Melanie immediately names Miss Perfect, making me want to grab one of these authors and shake them repeatedly while screaming "Why do you name all your horses Perfect this, something's Heart or combine both words in some horrible attempt to sugar coat everything to death! WHY?" I'm really just waiting for someone to name a horse Perfeart, and the tragedy will be complete. Anyway, it's very obvious that Ashleigh is still shell shocked over Wonder and Mike is all "just drop it! don't upset her, for Christ's sake!" whenever Christina points out that Star might very possibly belong at Whitebrook. It's clear that they're all walking on eggshells, desperate to maintain a semblance of calm so Ashleigh won't flip out and do something they'll all regret. Whatever that may be.

So Christina visits Star at Townsend Acres and Brad is being all upbeat about his championship potential, calling him their next champion and next Derby winner and next Triple Crown winner and seriously, Brad, like whoa. You can bring down the cheerfulness just a little because you're wasting it on Christina, who is determined to be sullen about everything. Brad informs her that they are going to start backing Star and Christina immediately has a hissy fit right there about how it is ONLY SPRING. Holy hell. So she brings it up to everyone who is anyone and everyone agrees that Brad is awesome and Christina should shut up already. Okay, they obviously didn't say Brad was awesome. I said that. Because it's true. And Christina should shut up already. But Christina is not to be deterred, because she is a main character in a horse story, and we know their MO by now. She and Melanie go to Townsend Acres to check in on Star and nothing is well. In fact, everything predictably sucks. Townsend Acres is too perfect. Too clean. Too successful. Too heavenly. Clearly it must be spoiled and rotten inside the, um, hearts of all their employees and whatever, because Star is being abused. Of course. Here we go again, kids. Let's strap ourselves in, for this is going to be a wild ride.

So Christina pitches another fit and Mr. Dunkirk, Brad's trainer who is fat and good at his job but not good, if you get my meaning, is no help and Christina threatens that she's going to be back! With her parents! Later today! And, seriously, Christina, you don't say that. This gives them a chance to prepare. Any moron with a slightly functional brain would know to keep their mouth shut. Clearly Christina is challenged in this area. So she comes back with her parents and clearly the horse is just dandy, but clearly only Christina can pick up on Star's not being totally dandy. Personally, I got a huge kick out of this section because they arrive during some random party Brad is throwing at the main residence and this is what he has to say:

Coming up beside Christina, he put his arm around her shoulder. "What do you think? Are we taking good care of your baby?"

Since he's been drinking what appears to be a lot of champagne, I can only conclude that Brad is smashed. That would really be the only way to explain this behavior.

Anyway, Mike and Ashleigh determine that Star is just fine. Christina does not accept this, and it takes Parker to explain to her that she's babied Star and he expects sweetness and light and doesn't really understand that life is not a boatload of rose petals all the time. Christina determines that it's all her fault. And, yeah, it might be Nana the goat's fault. God, Nana just won't go away. Parker then tells Christina that she should get a job at Townsend Acres as a groom and then he invites her on a private picnic, where they dash around on their horses and have this wonderful exchange that finally won me over a little more on the subject of Christina/Parker:

Christina: "That sounds like a date."
Parker: "So? Are you afraid of a date, Reese?"
Christina: "No way." *dashes off on some race thing*

And YES, I totally like this because he calls her Reese. Shut up. Parker then kills the mood by screaming whoowee, and then Christina totally does chicken out on the date and kills Parker's confidence, resulting in lots of confusion and annoying attempts to avoid each other.

Christina then becomes a groom at Townsend Acres, getting the grand tour by none other than Brad himself as he carts Christina around in a truck while completely winning her over on the grand majesty of the farm. This results in this conversation:

Brad: "Why are you so interested in working with Star? Whitebrook has a lot of nice colts and fillies. Besides, I thought you and Parker were only interested in that eventing business."
Chris: "We are. But Star's special When Wonder died, my mom was so upset, she wanted nothing to do with him. I took over and kind of became his mom. I'm sure that sounds silly to a professional horseman like you."
Brad: "No. It sounds like someone we both know very well. She was younger than you when she fell in love with Wonder, but she was just as obsessed."
Chris: "My mom, right?"
Brad: "Right. I never had any idea what she saw in that crippled foal. I was pretty certain Wonder wouldn't amount to anything, and boy, was I wrong."

But just wait for it. Waiiiit...

Brad: "Wonder's Star is going to be Townsend Acres' next champion. And no one is going to mess with that, especially not you."
Chris: "Wh-what do you mean?"

See, Alice can't get it straight with Brad. Nice, nice, nice...oops, too nice, let's swing all the way to evil! Brad isn't a psychopath, Alice. Please. Anyway, Christina learns all the military rules that Brad has suddenly decided to employ with Townsend Acres and Parker keeps delivering these ominous declarations of "he knows what you're doing all the time, Christina. he's watching you. he knows. he knows." Like, at this point I wouldn't be at all shocked if Christina woke up at night to find Brad sitting in the corner of her room, casually keeping tabs of her every movement and recording it all in a notebook entitled "Surveillance on the daughter of my arch nemesis/potential one time love interest."

Anyway, so it becomes very apparent that Brad knows, you guys. He knows everything. He knows without even having a person there to witness things that may be going on. He is clearly a demi-god, or he's got some special super powers that I can't even begin to seriously ponder. And Christina has fallen under this spell, much to Parker's shock.

Christina: Maybe you never gave Townsend Acres a chance.
Parker: I should have known.
Christina: Known what?
Parker: That you'd get sucked into my father's web.

The web of Brad! God, sign me up.

So Christina is all pissed about this, so she goes and long lines Star or whatever and almost gets trampled before Matt, random groom who is sweet and 18, comes in to sort of help her not get trampled. And Matt is cute. And adorable. And sweet. And Christina totally thinks he's cute, and then he takes her home on his motorcycle. And right here, right where she's clinging to his waist as he motorcycles her home, I started laughing. I didn't stop laughing for a while. Meanwhile, Melanie's all "Chris, you're dense." And Chris is all "Huh?" And Melanie smacks her head against a wall, or does the equivalent of this, probably, in private, and tells Christina that Parker is in love with her and she's motorcycling around with Matt, which Brad knows about because he knows everything? (Why does he care about this, is the grand question.) Christina, well, she just doesn't know. Then she does this Meadowbrook event with Sterling, but that sucks because she's not focusing on it and then Matt motorcycles out of nowhere to tell Christina that Brad is backing Star! Like, now! So Christina drops everything and Matt takes her back to the farm and she grabs his waist again and again I just die laughing.

Then the obvious happens. Brad is evil and is backing Star, but Christina demands that she help, resulting in Star flipping over and crushing the rider. Brad gets pissed at Christina for not controlling the horse...really it's just about everyone's fault at this point...and orders Parker off the farm when he comes to her defense. Then he orders Chris off the farm. Then Parker leaves in a huff, takes Christina with him and they drive back to Whitebrook and then back to the event, all the while having this "intense" (this is my "air quote" word for this conversation, not theirs, although I'm sure it totally would have been) talk about how much they like each other and then they start making out on the side of the road because it's so intense and their lives are so dramatic and Brad probably can see all of this happening in his super enhanced brain and is probably seething over it. Anyway, they get to the event after deciding to stop making out in the truck and Christina tells Ashleigh all about it and Mike tries to jump in to shield Ashleigh from the horror of having to deal with reality, but she stops him and they go off and save Star from Brad's handsome, long, wonderful fingers...yeah, I'm getting side tracked.

Okay, what really happened was Christina finds Star randomly still tied up with long lines or something, to the point that his nose is practically tied to his chest, something I really don't see happening at all, given that Brad sees and knows all and he's an amazing trainer given everyone's testimony and his singlehanded training job with March to Glory. I mean, seriously. So Christina cuts the lines and frees Star and Brad knows and shows up to defend himself or something and threaten her. Then Ashleigh comes in and everyone sort of goes still. At least I did. Brad and Ashleigh are interacting! My inner fangirl squees despite Parker over there being a downer with his "if you keep Star here you'll break his spirit, just like you did mine." And, you know, please. So Brad's getting it from all sides and he eventually just turns to Ashleigh and says, "She's your daughter, all right," which I find very weird. Like...what? Am I supposed to be reading into that as much as I did? So he also puts some conditions on giving Star back to Ashleigh. Like Star has to be phenomenal and win at least one of his first two races. Phenomenally. Or he's coming back to Townsend Acres. Ashleigh agrees. They pack up Star and go home to special Whitebrook to proceed with their training regimen of specialness.

• He was always polite to Christina, but whenever she saw him, she had a hard time being cordial in return. No freakin' kidding, Chris. Your overreaction to Brad being nice is legendary at this point.
  

• "Hmpf." Okay, Brad does not, under any circumstances, hmpf.

• On Brad and Wonder: "Didn't he try to make her lose one of her races on purpose?" Uh, no?

• On Ashleigh and Wonder: "I just remember what happened to Wonder when we pushed her too hard in training." Which was when?

• On Christina and Parker: She didn't know why one hug was making her feel so flustered. Chris, sweetie, you're fifteen. He's seventeen. If someone walked up and smacked her on the back of the head right now, it would be justified.

• On Christina and Brad: Would she have to call Brad "sir"? More important, would she have to do everything he told her to do? Oh, man, my brain went to a really bad place at this point. I am so ashamed.

• Christina has kissed many boys before Parker? What? Who are these many boys besides Dylan?
  

• Star rears and Brad immediately moves to shield his face. I couldn't help but think, "No! Not his beautiful face!" Yeah, I'm either pathetic or just that amused.

You know, I actually enjoyed this far more than I should have. Not because it was good, but mainly because it was just so damn funny. In fact, if all of the books could have been like this one, I wouldn't have complained. Or maybe it's just late and I'm in a ridiculously good mood for no reason. Maybe it's just that.

...

Maybe.

Looking for a riding princess? Look no further!

Flying Changes
by Sara Gruen
Published: 2005

After finishing up Riding Lessons, I got to work on its sequel, Flying Changes.

Twenty years after her competitive riding career died, Annemarie Zimmer worries that her relationship with the man she loves is off course, and fears that daughter Eva's own dreams of Olympic glory will carry her far from home ... and into harm's way.

When the teenage Eva is invited to audition for a world-class trainer, Annemarie realizes that she must give Eva a chance to soar. But when Eva falls in love with a spectacular blue roan Nokota who hasn't let anyone ride him since his arrival at the barn, Annemarie's doubts come crashing back.

It is a time of change at Maple Brook, when fears must be saddled and broken. And one remarkable family must learn how to deal with Flying Changes.

So, the first thing I have to ask myself is if Riding Lessons really needed a sequel. Honestly, I can't help but come to the fact that I really don't think a continuation of the plot was necessary given that Riding Lessons wrapped up well and left little concern (on my part, anyway) for what would happen with the characters after all plot points concluded. It's not that I found the characters in Riding Lessons mediocre and uninteresting...it's just that their story seemed to be done. Annemarie became a part-time instructor at her mother's barn, her relationships seemed solid, she got her horse, she got back on said horse...it was done.

Apparently, it wasn't done. Annemarie is back, and I don't know how to feel about this. Nevertheless, I read the sequel. And I'm here to recap and report my findings. So here we go.

Since Riding Lessons, Annemarie has moved into Jean Claude's old apartment in the barn in an attempt to seem like she's a nearly forty adult who isn't living with her mother. The main house is too small to hold three people, so Eva and her mother are still living there while Annemarie is off doing who knows what in the barn. Immediately I tend to have an issue with this because it seems like Annemarie is shoving off her maternal duties on her mother so she can more easily sneak about with Dan. No wonder this Eva kid is so annoying -- her mother is desperately trying to act like she's 19.

There is also a host of new issues that have cropped up, obviously. Otherwise we wouldn't have a sequel, because all those concluded plot points have to unravel somehow, right? The issues are as follows:

• Annemarie won't let anyone watch her ride Hurrah. She tends to ride him in the early morning, and she always (ALWAYS) rides him bareback. Because nothing can come between her and her horse...like a saddle. Or pants. No, actually, she does wear pants. I just sort of had to wonder about that part. So because she's so super secret about this, people start to think she needs therapy. Annemarie just wants to BE ALONE WITH THE HORSE. Why can't people understand? Here are my thoughts on this. If you make something a big deal, people tend to react by thinking you're eccentric or need therapy. It's just a given. So shut up or explain to them why you like to ride him alone. It's not like this is a big deal. BUT IT SO IS.
  

• Eva wants to compete. Eva also happens to be a freakish, Mary Sue natural at riding. Annemarie, given her past, doesn't want Eva to compete. Not to mention it's ridiculously expensive to compete and so forth. Eva acts out in an annoying teenage manner by dumping her nice, stable boyfriend and getting an obnoxious boyfriend who smokes pot. She gets expelled for smoking pot. Etc.
  

• Annemarie and Dan don't go out anymore. This is so many levels of horrible for poor Annemarie, who wants to go out! Or maybe she wants him around more often because he keeps going to pick up PMU horses from closing down "pee farms." Or maybe she wants to get married. Or maybe she's just a little insane. Or maybe she's just reading into her relationship way too much. Although, actually, it turns out that she just wants to get married. Mainly because she doesn't want to seem like such a failure anymore. Oh, and she loves Dan too and thinks she should have married him instead of Roger. So she wants to make up for her stupid, teenage mistakes. Or something.

Okay, so those are the issues. Getting back to the plot, Dan asks Annemarie to come stay at his place while he's in Canada picking up these mares because another mare at his place is about to foal and he needs someone to watch her. Annemarie doesn't know how to assist a foaling mare, but she agrees anyway. While she's there she gets a call about a horse someone wants to sell to the rescue. The rescue doesn't buy horses (except auctions, I guess), so Annemarie gets pissed off at her situation and agrees to buy this horse. She goes out there and deals with this Eugenie woman, her obviously neglected/abused horse, and winds up stumbling into a domestic dispute between Eugenie and her husband. The cops come. AGAIN. This is the fourth time in a year that Annemarie has been involved with the police. Anyway, she takes the horse/pony thing and takes it back to the rescue. The mare gives birth, although it's a breech birth, but like that stops Annemarie from being clumsily awesome and saving the day.

Mundane things happen. Really, this is like the best example for mundane details taking over a story. Annemarie wakes up to her daughter shouting for her to get dressed, Annemarie brushes her hair, Annemarie complains about being 39, Annemarie takes a bath, Annemarie rummages through refrigerators looking for beer, Annemarie takes up a whole page with trying to open a beer. It's just like that. So, during all of this, Eva gets expelled and Annemarie finally tells her mother about this vague phone call she got before the book started, which she's been thinking about for at least 80 pages, but is just now coming around to telling anyone about. Including the reader. This woman, Nathalie someone, wants Eva to come train with her. As in full time training, working, tutoring on the side so Eva could get some semblance of education...that kind of training. Because Eva has been kicked out of school, going to train with Nathalie is the best option. So they go to Nathalie's farm and Eva tries out and Eva is accepted because Eva is astonishingly amazing after only one year of formal lessons. I'm not even going to get into the dressage she does in her try out. Just know she's unrealistically amazing.

Then Eugenie pops up again. For seemingly no reason. Then she disappears. I don't know.

So Eva goes to Nathalie's farm. Meanwhile, Dan is going to take Annemarie out for her birthday at Annemarie's favorite restaurant. For some reason Annemarie gets it into her head that TODAY is the DAY. He is going to propose. She knows it. So she gets there and for some reason swats away every romantic gesture he tries to make, right down to refusing this desert she loves. Then he gives her earrings and she totally throws a fit and makes a scene and gets the hell out of there. It is OVER. Like, so over there's another scene of punching walls while Annemarie hides in Hurrah's stall, refusing to meet Dan so they can have an adult conversation about why she's a lunatic.

After this she goes out to a competition of Eva's. Roger, the asshole ex-husband, and his new family (because his new wife just had a shiny new baby) are supposed to be there. They fail to show. Red flags should be waving all over the place right about now. Eva goes into emotional turmoil and screws her dressage test to the point where there's no way she could place in the rest of the show. Eva throws more fits, Eva grows more tiresome, Eva falls off in the cross country, Eva has another fit, and finally Nathalie and Annemarie tell her it's over. She's not going to finish the competition. Eva has another fit, insisting that she wants to leave, blah blah blah, Nathalie calls her a spoiled brat, which is probably the biggest understatement in these two books, and demands that she come support her teammates in the show jumping round or she's not welcome back to her farm. For some reason, Annemarie takes Eva home instead. When they get there, Annemarie's mom tells her that Roger & Co. were in an accident. His new wife is dead and Roger is in critical condition and the baby is peachy keen. Mostly. So they have to go to the hospital and while they're there Roger finally dies. Everyone goes into more hysterics. Eva screams and cries, Annemarie cries, the baby cries...at this point I needed them all to shut up, and thankfully they sort of do. Because someone has to take care of this baby.

Annemarie wants the kid, but the kid is so new that Roger hasn't named a guardian in his will. His wife's family is a no go, Roger has no family, and that leaves Eva as the only family the baby technically has. Annemarie calls up Roger's law firm partners and they pull strings within the Minnesota system, and Annemarie gets the kid. But not before the social services woman likens Annemarie to Ted Bundy and Karla Homolka. SERIOUSLY. Like...some federal judge went over social services and this justifies Annemarie being compared to serial killers? I didn't get it when I read it, and it still makes no sense.

Anyway, during all of this, Dan shows up and proposes to Annemarie. Apparently he was always going to propose during the dinner, but Annemarie blew up before he could actually do so. He had the ring baked into one of the deserts. I don't know why he had the earrings also, but clearly he played that wrong. So he still has the ring. It's still encrusted with chocolate. He rinses it off and they do their thing and are engaged. They take the baby home. They do their new parents thing. They all decide to live in the same house at the farm, and will just put on an expansion so they're not sleeping in the living room. Dan and Annemarie get married. Eva gets to go back to Nathalie's place because Annemarie lies about when they hear about Roger's accident. Eva then wins a competition and a $30,000 purse. Then Annemarie gets on Hurrah and rides him around without tack completely and jumps him in front of Dan. The end.

So, yeah, I don't know exactly what the point was here other than an urge to continue with established characters. I get this urge, I really do. I just don't see much of a plot.

• The Eugenie situation with the pony fizzles and completely dies halfway through the book. I fail to see why this was included or necessary to the story besides the fact that it gives us and Annemarie the opportunity to discover that she would take in an abused/orphaned child. This doesn't need to be said.
  

• If Eva is a riding princess mary sue, then her horse is the equine mary sue to end all equine mary sues. The horse in question is a blue roan Nokota named Smokey Joe. He is special because he is full-blooded Nokota, he is only seven, he only lets "special" people ride him, even the most advanced of riders cannot ride him if he doesn't approve them, and despite the little training he's received considering only "special" people can ride him, he is ridiculously talented and can perform one tempi changes or something. And he can jump huge spreads. And he's like every Thoroughbred horse combined. Honestly, you can't get more mary sue than this. If I thought Annemarie's two brindled Hanoverians was special in Riding Lessons, Eva's blue roan Nokota wonder horse makes Harry and Hurrah seem plain.
  

• The one saving grace in this book is that eventually people stop giving Eva all the slack she demands. Eva is annoying as hell, and when Annemarie starts to blatantly tell her to shut up I was cheering for her on the sidelines.

All in all, I didn't like it as much as Riding Lessons. For the obvious reason that I don't think its existence is justified. Annemarie and Eva are barely tolerable, made so only because Annemarie's mother and Dan seem to balance it out. The last few pages I did like, mainly because Sara Gruen went back to making jumping and riding seem interesting, rather than mechanical and dull. Unfortunately I slipped into boredom during some of the cross country and jumping scenes during the novel, so I can't give this book a pass here.

So that's all. If Sara Gruen writes another horse book, I desperately implore her to find a new cast to play with. I think Annemarie has run her course.

This is a horse story on valium.

Riding Lessons
by Sara Gruen
Published: 2004

I will admit that I steered clear of this book for a long time. Basically since it was published. I remember finding it repeatedly in book stores and repeatedly putting it back on the shelf, I suppose mainly because I was convinced it was nothing more than a romance novel masquerading as "serious" fiction, whatever that is.

Earlier this year I read Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen's third novel. It has horses in it (hell, it's about the circus...of course it has horses in it) but not to the extent that I would read it for this blog. I flew through that one in just under a day and loved it, despite what I thought was an unfortunately weird and unrealistic ending. I'd still recommend it, so I started to eye her earlier books with less reluctance. And then Riding Lessons and Flying Changes were requested for the blog, and that just worked out for me. So thank you, whoever it was that requested these books. I finally convinced myself to read them, all thanks to you.

As a world-class equestrienne and Olympic contender, Annemarie Zimmer lived for the thrill of flight atop a strong, graceful animal. Then, at eighteen, a tragic accident destroyed her riding career and Harry, her beloved and distinctively marked horse.

Now, twenty years later, Annemarie is coming home to her dying father’s New Hampshire horse farm. Jobless and abandoned, she is bringing her troubled teenaged daughter to this place of pain and memory, where ghosts of an unresolved youth still haunt the fields and stables—and where hope lives in the eyes of the handsome, gentle veterinarian Annemarie loved as a girl, and in the seductive allure of a trainer with a magic touch.

But everything will change once again with one glimpse of a red-and-white-striped gelding startlingly familiar to the one Annemarie lost in another lifetime. And an obsession is born that could shatter her fragile world…

There you have it, guys. Tragedy, drama, life changes, and a brindled horse. What more do you want? Well? I should mention that this is a debut novel, which seems to be an easy way to explain any insanity, should there be any. Lucky for us there is little insanity that isn't intentional in this book, because as you can imagine with that summary, there will be plenty of hysterics to go through.

Well, anyway. Annemarie is our main character. She's 38, lives in Minneapolis, has a 15-year-old daughter named Eva, works as a technical writer/editor/something like that, and is married to Roger, a lawyer. Looking at her now, you'd never know she was a Grand Prix rider when she was 18, but all of that ended when her horse crumpled during competition and sent both of them head first into the dirt. The horse, a chestnut brindled Hanoverian named Harry, is destroyed and Annemarie only wishes she could have been put down right along with him. Instead she suffers near catastrophic injuries and somehow manages to fully recover. By the time she's walking again, she wants nothing to do with horses and, in order to assure herself that she'll never get on a horse again, she marries Roger at 19 and runs off to Minnesota.

These first few chapters were exceedingly well done, actually. Sara Gruen takes you through the competition with Anniemare and Harry, making show jumping actually seem interesting to me. So this has become my test to see if a book passes muster: if it makes a repetitive motion I've read about countless times feel breathtaking, like I'm reading the same stuff for the first time, the book is worthwhile. Sara Gruen manages this in the first chapter. So I guess I could shut this review down now. But I won't. I have other things to get to, because it's not all sunshine and roses here, guys.

After these initial chapters, we get to Annemarie's life at present. Her 38-year-old self is about ready to take another fall, which happens in the form of 1) getting laid off and 2) her husband telling her that it's over. He has a 23-year-old girl he'd really like to have sex with more than her. This is his plan. No one can sway him from his plan, which is good because Annemarie does the equivalent of a shrug. More or less. She just calls up her mom to tell her she's coming home, but her mom just informs her that her father has ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease. The world has officially ended. Annemarie goes home to face the family she basically ran away from twenty years ago, dragging her petulant teenager along with her.

Because this is in the first person, we get a lot of Annemarie's internal angsting over all of this. She's got issues with everything, from her memories of her father being a drill sergeant forcing her to ride until she found Harry and rode because she loved Harry, to her mother's disapproval over twenty years, to her daughter testing every boundary a teenager can test, to the guy (Dan) she loved more than Roger but left because her parents actually liked him (the horror), to the divorce papers she filed, to her failed marriage...you name it, Annemarie is angsting over it. Essentially.

While she's there, Annemarie decides to take up managing the family's barn. It's a high class barn, filled with high class horses that I'm sure plenty of high class people are riding and paying plenty to keep in high class conditions. They have a French trainer named Jean-Claude, for Christ's sake. Annemarie figures this managing thing shouldn't be very hard, so she takes up the reins and takes the barn for a test drive. We'll see how that turns out a little later.

As it happens, Dan is still around. He's a vet, Annemarie's parents are still in love with him, and he runs a rescue somewhere nearby. Eva starts to volunteer for him, although that's sort of a tenuous situation because Eva is experiencing her raging teenage hormone years right now. Anyway, Dan recently picked up a horse at auction, and it's a chestnut brindled Hanoverian with one eye. Turns out Harry has a full brother, you guys. His name was Highland Hurrah, and Annemarie's parents considered buying him for her had she not run off and gotten married. This horse is now 17, and was also a Grand Prix jumper with someone named Ian. Only he was supposed to have died in a fire. Annemarie is flummoxed. Flummoxed! Or, well, she cries a lot. Same thing. She insists on adopting the brindled horse, and then she becomes obsessed with finding out everything she can about Highland Hurrah. To the point that she insists that Dan get this old scanner that could read any old chip that Hurrah might have had. He does this and calls it in before Annemarie can change her mind, resulting in hysterics because DAMN IT she didn't specifically tell him to call it in and he SHOULD HAVE ANTICIPATED her insane change of mind! How inconsiderate of him!

I should mention that by this point they're sort of casually dating. Yeah...not a good idea to go off on the guy when he's trying to be helpful, Annemarie. Anyway, turns out the brindled horse is actually Highland Hurrah. They punch walls in anger and that's that. Only this is where Annemarie flies off the deep end. She's not a good manager. Like, at all. Instead of managing she's been spending every waking minute surfing the internet looking for pictures of Highland Hurrah so she can compare him to her brindled horse, becoming further convinced her horse is Hurrah, which leads to this wall hitting episode. And it also leads to her accidentally telling off a high class boarder, who hauls her six high class horses out of there, the farm runs out of hay and shavings (nicely done, Annemarie), she has to buy more expensive hay and shavings to make up for her internet obsession, and they run out of money. Literally. All the paychecks bounce. Then she fires one of the stable hands for getting flirty with Eva and for being Mexican, leading to all of his stable hand cousins quitting. She's on a serious roll.

While this is happening, she's also very busy losing it. Because it's been confirmed that the horse is Highland Hurrah she comes up with a plan to dye all of Hurrah's white stripes. She actually does this. Then she's off thinking rapid fire of ways to get the horse off the farm, and before she can really do this her dad dies. Only he doesn't just die. Oh no. Her parents have been cruising around to different doctors, gathering up all this phenobarbital something or another so they can give him one massive dose...taking him 18 hours to die. While Annemarie has been off acting like a loon, her father has been slowly committing assisted suicide. How's that for closure, Annemarie?

The police come. Everyone gives their statements, and then they discover that Eva has run away. The police come again. Eva turns up in Minneapolis because at this point she'd rather be with Roger, and seeing as how Annemarie has very quickly lost it, I don't blame her. Because I guess that Minnesota requires a court hearing to get divorced, Annemarie has to go back there anyway to get officially divorced, and she's supposedly going to pick her up then. She goes to Minnesota, gets divorced, gets drunk, and Roger tells her he always loved her more. That asshole. Eva still won't come home with her, so she drives back and has a series of epiphanies about her life and so forth. Essentially, she stops being so insane.

Although this is short lived because when she gets home there's a trailer by the barn. Horse thieves are after Hurrah, of course, because this Ian guy is a prat. Annemarie calls 911 and then she and Jean-Claude more or less save the day by kicking ass and taking names. The police come again. For a while Annemarie is suspected of...doing something illegal, but not that anyone really comes to any conclusions there. The police cart Hurrah off to New Mexico, where the trial for Ian will be held, Eva comes home to see the funeral, she inexplicably stays, Jean-Claude decides to leave, but not before almost having sex with Annemarie in a stall for no reason that she initiates and stops, Anniemarie and her mother, who will not be going to jail, I guess, decide to collectively get over it, and then Annemarie and Dan have sex. Yay!

So things finally settle down. Annemarie sells her house in Minneapolis, using the extra money to pay for the damage her irresponsibility wrought on the barn. She becomes the barn's instructor, doing a much better job at that than at management. Eva adopts a filly from Dan's rescue, I guess is still seeing the stable hand boy because he's got a scholarship (therefore he can date her, despite being Mexican or something), and Dan goes out to New Mexico and brings back Hurrah from yet another auction. It ends well. Annemarie finally rides Hurrah, getting over twenty years of trauma and overblown angst.

• I expected more to be said between Annemarie and her father. Instead she spends most of the book dodging him, and then he commits suicide, so I'm not sure how to feel about this. After he's dead, she sort of gets some things off her chest to her mother, but it's not the same, especially considering she harbors such resentment toward being forced to ride.

• The potential Jean-Claude/Annemarie sex. Comes out of nowhere, really has no purpose, and left me pretty damn confused.

• Hurrah's transformation. Hurrah is initially a very damaged horse, with probably some severe psychological trauma. Annemarie's method of getting through to him is just sticking him in a pasture by himself and rolling apples toward him for weeks on end. Right when she's starting to lose it after neglecting to order hay and realizing the barn could possibly be foreclosed on, Hurrah does a 180. Conveniently enough. After that, he's basically a kitten.

• The whole Hurrah plot. Ian Whatshisname set up an accident to make it look like Hurrah had died so he could claim over a million dollars in insurance. Dan mentions it's impossible for this horse to be Hurrah because any insurance agency would have to see the body for a claim to be valid. Instead of killing Hurrah, Ian kills another horse and has its body burned beyond recognition in order to get the claim. So...why not just kill Hurrah? What is the point in keeping him alive, other than it can come back to bite him on the ass? Here, I guess we can explain this off as a debut mistake, but it's a pretty major one. Anyone with enough gall to try to defraud an insurance agency should have enough gall to actually kill the horse in question.

• Annemarie...is not exactly likable. I started off the book liking her, but by the point where she was panicking because she hadn't ordered hay and bedding for weeks on end she started losing massive amounts of points with me. Not to mention I'm not sure how feasible it is to blame surfing the internet because you're obsessed with finding pictures of your horse. And this is how it goes for most of the rest of the book. She wants things and freaks out after she gets them. She mainly overreacts to everything, seems to really actually be racist (I can't explain her freak out when she tries to get her stable hands to come back, resulting in her peeling out of a predominantly Mexican neighborhood because Mexican men are walking up to her car), shirks off responsibility...she's a mess. I think she manages to pull herself back together at the end of the book. Well enough that I started to like her again, but by three quarters through you sort of wish someone would knock her unconscious and take over the story for her.

So, yeah, it's got some problems. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to think of the sequel, especially given the fact that Annemarie is back as the main character in Flying Changes. It's next on my list, so I'll see how it goes. Otherwise, I still recommend Riding Lessons. It's better than I thought it would be, but it's definitely not in the same league as Water For Elephants. I guess that means Sara Gruen is growing as a writer. Good on you, Sara.