Top o' the morning to you! Where's me second annoying Samantha diary? Thoroughbred #66: Samantha's Irish Luck

Samantha's Irish Luck
Thoroughbred #66
By Mary Newhall
August 2004

Samantha is in love and has finally found the perfect horse. But is her luck about to run out?

Samantha and Tor's month-long honeymoon in Ireland turns into a much longer stay when Samantha meets Finn, a massive sporthorse that is a descendant of Red Rum, steeplechasing's greatest horse. Samantha is enjoying such success with Finn that she and Tor settle into the idea that they'll be in Ireland for the rest of their lives.

Then Tor gets an urgent call to return home to Kentucky. With the Grand National just weeks away, Tor urges Samantha to stay in Ireland, but she still finds herself torn between her husband and her beloved horse. If only she didn't have such a nagging feeling about leaving Finn behind. She's sure something horrible is about to happen.

The Summary:
This is relatively accurate, and 100% reflective of the stupidity of Samantha's attitude in these two books. Who knew that getting married makes you act like a ten-year-old again?

The Cover:
Here we've got another brunette Samantha and another a veiny horse. Oh god, and another beribboned riding helmet! They are apparently racing in a steeplechase with the smallest field (read: nonexistent) in the history of steeplechasing. You can tell they're in Ireland because everything is green. And pink. Apparently it's a rule that you can't have a Thoroughbred cover without pink these days.

The Plot:
Samantha and Tor are standing in the nursery that Ashleigh et. al. cleaned out in the last book, wondering if it'll be big enough. I sure hope so, after you subjected your friends to a day of your tedious reminiscing. The gleesome threesome come back, this time to paint the room. Samantha goes down to the barn and runs into Kaitlin, who makes the mistake of asking why Samantha and Tor moved back from Ireland and how they got Finn McCoul the Wonder Horse (not to be confused with a Wonderpony). Samantha settles down for a long winter's nap, or at least a 136-page story.

So Samantha and Tor go on a month-long honeymoon at an equestrian bed-and-breakfast in Ireland, which is run by Jimmy and Hannah Hollis and their daughter, Ghyllian, whom you may remember from fine literary works such as The Price of Fame and Star's Inspiration. Apparently this is the real Celtic Meadows (which may explain why I was confused every time Ghyllian showed up to run her horses in Kentucky). They meet a beautiful weanling called Finn McCoul, a son of Red Rum, who "won the Grand National Steeplechase three times and placed second twice." Great. At least we got that over with. They go on a bunch of trail rides and buy sweaters and eat a lot and Samantha falls in love with Finn.

Back in Kentucky, Samantha is all mopey about missing Ireland. Going to a diner makes her think about Hannah's beef stew. For Christmas, she buys a "white wool fisherman's sweater for Tor and a coffee cup with a shamrock design on it for Tor's father." Okay, seriously, Sammy? You bought him a mug when you could go to Goodwill and get ten of them for a dollar? Next you're probably going to buy Cindy a pair of stonewashed jeans with shamrocks on them.

Then Jimmy Hollis randomly calls from Ireland to say that he wants to concentrate on flat-racing at Celtic Meadows, and do Samantha and Tor want to come over and handle the eventing side? Shocker! I can't believe it took 58 pages to get to that. So, surprising no one, Samantha and Tor move to Ireland (after dumping Whisperwood on Mr. Nelson and Shining on Mandy). Samantha decides she is the luckiest person in the world. I think she also said that in Samantha's Journey and Bridal Dreams. Let's hope it goes better this time, Sammy.

Samantha trains Finn for eventing and says he's "the easiest horse I've ever trained." Oh god, it's Storm's Ransom reincarnated! Someone better call Mulder and Scully! He must really be a Wonder Horse, because a mere one paragraph later, he is four years old and they are competing in the Badminton Horse Trials in England. Finn does well in dressage, but stumbles and bows a tendon during cross-country. The vet diagnoses him with pedal osteitis and says he doesn't know if he'll ever jump again. This makes perfect sense because it's "the same disease Red Rum had, and he still raced and won." I guess we're not done with the famous horsie references after all. A second vet also suggests that they stop racing him, but Samantha says he "love[s] to race too much to give up now." I can't decide if this is supposed to be one of those "unlikely undersized weakling foal who grew up to take blue ribbons at the National Horse Show" stories or just really, really irresponsible. I mean, because it's Thoroughbred, I know he's not going to die (unless he's Storm, or Wonder, or Black Night, or Midnight Wanderer, or … maybe I should stop). But in real life, I don't think people say, "Oh yeah! You love to race so much that we should just ignore that fractured cannon bone and turn you out on the track!"

Samantha walks Finn on the beach and exercises him in the water. The vet says he's doing great. I guess Ghyllian and Samantha have been talking to Leslie D'Andrea. Jimmy wants to prep him for a steeplechase. The vet says, "I don't care much for steeplechases—I think they're hard on the horses. But if you're going to race him, now's the time." WTF is wrong with these people?

Samantha jockeys Finn in a steeplechase at Punchestown and wins. They point him to the Grand National, until Ian calls to say that Tor's dad is sick and Tor needs to come home. Samantha decides to go with him, thinking it'll just be a short visit. At the hospital they meet his fiancée, Helen, a nurse, who tells them that it's more serious than they thought: he has cancer. Tor's dad tells them that they need to move to Arizona for the "warm, dry climate." Gee, I didn't know he also had the galloping cough. Tor and Samantha decide to stay in Kentucky and take over Whisperwood. (At this point we smack into Racing Parker, in which Christina is twelve, riding Sterling, and wants to switch to taking lessons with Sammy, because she is a "world-class three-day-event rider.")

They watch the Grand National on TV, and Finn breaks down while jumping over the last fence. Jimmy calls from Ireland to say he's torn a tendon and won't race again. This gives Samantha a chance to mope again (she should take lessons from Christina), only instead of missing Ireland, she misses Finn.

Tor asks her to accompany him on a surprise trip to the Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, New York. Hey, I know where that is. I drive by there every time I go home to visit my parents. Tor tells Samantha they're there to look at a stallion he's thinking of buying for their breeding operation, who turns out to be, of course, Finn. I'm sure this is all very romantic, Tor, but number one, I would be really annoyed if my husband agreed to buy a horse without asking me, and number two, if Finn is just like Red Rum and all that, are you sure you want to pass on those weak pedal bones to another generation? I mean, let's not forget here that in TB-land, every colt is just like his father and every filly is just like her mother. It's a good thing Red Rum didn't have a superdrive. Tor tells Samantha that Finn will be in quarantine for a while and then will be shipped to Kentucky. So basically, you guys took an exciting flight to New York just so you could look at a horse's nose. Also a prudent financial choice, Tor. Samantha waxes eloquent about how lucky she is again.

We come back to the present, where Samantha is shocked to find that several hours have passed. Kaitlin is still patiently listening (I picture her looking like Marius in this hilarious scene from the Les Misérables movie) and thinking, "Oh god, why did I agree to get into this? Next she's going to start telling me how she met my mother." Cindy, Ashleigh, and Christina show off the freshly painted nursery, and Samantha and Tor tell them that—surprise!—they're expecting twins. I bet NO ONE saw that coming after all the hints people dropped in previous books.

Points of Interest:

• Samantha says, "I hope we get at least a few days of sun while we're here." Haha, nice try, Sammy. Maybe if you stay in Ireland for six years, you'll get summer on one or two days.
  
• We find out that Caroline is living out of the country with her husband, Mr. Presumably-Justin. Apparently this is the way to ditch any Griffens we don't like; Rory went overseas, too, after Ashleigh's Diary. (When we don't like Townsends, we just don't mention them, and I guess when we don't like the Grahams/Reeses, we just kill them off without ever explaining exactly how Christina is related to Melanie.)
  
• Cindy is conveniently not home for Christmas because she's in New York. I guess that means this is supposed to be set around the time as Cindy's Bold Start, which I don't think is right—if Sammy is 23, just turning 24, then Cindy should still be 17 and in high school, and don't forget, you have to cram Cindy's Desert Adventure in there somewhere (much as I would like to forget it). Oh well. The less I have to deal with Cindy, the better.
  
• Dress alert! Sammy wears an emerald necklace and a gold taffeta gown with a halter top and a full skirt. It sounds kind of prom-like, but no worse than anything Ashleigh, Christina, and/or Cindy have worn to the prom. Oh, and I should mention she wears this to a party or something. Not to an actual steeplechase, though I wouldn't put it past her.
  
• Samantha also wears an emerald-and-sapphire bracelet, which Ian apparently gave her on her wedding day. If you believe Samantha's Journey, they kept nothing of Suzanne's except her green dress and security blankie riding boots, but previous Joanna-authored books make reference to some of her other possessions, so it makes sense that they would have some keepsakes. I think it's also likely that Suzanne's parents still had some of her family mementos.

Next up: #67: Breaking the Fall and #68: Kaitlin's Wild Ride have already been reviewed by Claire. Next up from me: Melanie's Double Jinx, notable for the amazing cover art! You'll be wowed! Stay tuned!

Oh, if only this were a Saddle Club book, and then we could have the pun-filled title of "Bridle Dreams." Thoroughbred #65: Bridal Dreams.

Bridal Dreams
Thoroughbred #65
By Mary Newhall
June 2004

Will Samantha and Tor's wedding be ruined?

Preparing to welcome a baby to the family, Samantha and Tor are cleaning out the spare bedroom to make a nursery when they find their wedding album. It's been stored away for years and now brings back a lot of memories.

Long ago, when she and Tor got engaged, Samantha began planning the most glorious wedding Kentucky had ever seen. But as the date neared, disaster followed disaster, forcing her to put her plans aside. First a mare went into premature labor; then a steeplechase horse with Man o' War's bloodlines needed their help; finally there was a terrible accident.

Samantha was starting to think maybe she and Tor weren't meant to get married. After everything that had gone wrong, would their wedding day turn into another disaster?

The Summary:

Props for general accuracy on this one, though it wasn't really all that difficult—throw in some photo album, some wedding, some accidents, and you've got a summary.  Also, is that "long ago" like "a long time ago when the earth was green," or "long ago, in the faraway land of ancient Greece there was a golden age of powerful gods extraordinary heroes"?  It makes it sound like their wedding was about 326 years ago—which, in Thoroughbred time, it might have been.

The Cover:

Gosh, look!  It's Keri Russell marrying Parker Townsend!  Oh, wait … it's not?  Could've fooled me.  So we have a lovely brunette so-called Samantha marrying a lovely brunette so-called Tor.  Samantha is wearing a stunning pink tunic that goes nicely with her brown red hair (and looks nothing like the wedding dress described in the book), and Tor is wearing some kind of denim jacket that is a cross between James Dean and the World War I trenches.  And those flowers.  FLOWERS EVERYWHERE.  Apparently Tor has journeyed over some purple mountains on his horse and has found paradise in the flower utopia.  Confession time:  I once did some watercolors featuring purple mountains.  But I was ten at the time.

The Plot:

Well, guys, it had to happen eventually.  Ashleigh got not only the best diary but an entire spin-off featuring things that didn't happen in TB-verse, Cindy got not one but two hideously titled diaries, and now it's Samantha's turn.  We start with the never-before-used trope of "oh crap we need this room for something let's clean it out and HEY LOOK something wonderful that reminds me of my past which I will tell you a really long and uninteresting story about!"  Ashleigh, Christina, and Cindy come over to help and impress us with Mary Newhall's ability to read and remember the contents of the early books, such as that Sierra existed, Max Smith existed, Cindy was an overly confident little brat, the Pony Commandos existed, and Mandy existed.  They find Samantha's wedding dress, and Ashleigh says that it was "the wedding we thought was never going to happen."  Christina, like a dutiful daughter, asks to hear the story.  That, or she's just really tired of picking through Samantha and Tor's junk.

We are blasted back a number of years (though not quite 326) to Yvonne Ortez and Gregg Doherty's wedding.  For those keeping track, that means Samantha is 23, Tor is 25, Kevin is four, Cindy is 17, Mandy is 13, Christina is four (almost five), and Ashleigh's last name has magically changed to Griffin.  Gregg and Yvonne get married and everything is beautiful.  Tor decides that his "oh Sammy, kiss me!" proposal from Samantha's Journey wasn't good enough, so he proposes again, this time right in the middle of the wedding reception.  Yeah, that's really polite, Tor.  At least he has a ring this time.

Samantha and Tor can't decide on a date for their wedding, but Samantha does propose a honeymoon in the Caribbean, like Ashleigh and Mike.  Beth suggests that they book the country club for a December 7 wedding.  Samantha isn't excited about something so fancy, but she says yes.

Maureen brings over some wedding magazines, and Sammy balks at the idea of wearing a fancy dress.  Beth hires a wedding planner named Erika Alfonso, who also planned Brad and Lavinia's wedding.  I'm sure you can guess how Samantha feels about the fancy wedding planner, but she handles it remarkably well given that I fully support bopping Beth over the head at this point.  Erika is just leaving when Shining goes into early labor even though she's only five months along.  Dr. Smith (hello again, Max's mom) moves her to her vet clinic.  Shining loses the foal and will not be able to have another, but is okay otherwise.  Tor very supportively tells Samantha that this is "a rotten thing to happen."  What is wrong with him in this book?  Has he lost all sense of how to be a decent person?  Are you sure you want to marry this guy, Sammy?

Brad and Lavinia pop over to the clinic to let Samantha know that they've booked the country club for their own party on December 7.  DUN DUN DUN.  Samantha and Tor don't really mind, and plan for a small wedding in February instead.  Mandy, who's been hanging around all throughout this book, loves Shining so much that Samantha decides to move her to Whisperwood to recover, so she can hang out with Mandy and Mandy can draw her picture and bring her flowers and love her and squeeze her and call her Bob.

Tor and Samantha take Sierra to a steeplechase at Bright Meadows in October.  They see a horse called Miss Battleship, who has Man o' War in her bloodlines.  (Helpful hint:  This is your famous horsie reference of the book.)  Sammy wins her 'chase on Sierra, and Miss Battleship's owner asks her to ride Miss Battleship.  They finish sixth.  The owner is disappointed and plans to sell her, so Samantha and Tor take the money they were going to use for their honeymoon and buy Miss Battleship instead.

Sammy and Beth shop for a wedding dress and "a pair of white lace-up boots," which, I don't know, maybe it's just me, sound perfectly hideous.  At dinner, Ian announces that Len has decided to retire to Indiana to be near his daughter and grandchildren.  Wow, Len!  Remember him?  And they mention Charlie too!  Hot damn.  Mike hires George Ballard as the new manager of the stallion barn.

Ashleigh gets thrown from a horse during a work and fractures a vertebra.  The doctor advises that she not race anymore.  Yay, more continuity!  It's mentioned in earlier books that Ashleigh stopped racing because of back problems.  Sammy wants to postpone the wedding again so Ashleigh can be in it.  She and Tor decide to have a small civil ceremony.

So even though they agree on that, in the weirdest case of five-year-old logic ever, Samantha decides that she and Tor aren't "meant" to get married, and "Maybe Maureen and I will be silly old single ladies together, wearing purple and drinking tea together on the porch."  I mean, WTF?  (I've said that twice in this recap now, haven't I?  Remind me again of why I was looking forward to this book?)

Then, just in time, Ashleigh and Cindy et. al. throw Sammy a surprise wedding shower, and make plans for a horseback wedding next week.  I guess they've been taking a page out of The Saddle Club.  Sammy rides sidesaddle on Pride, which, aside from the whole wedding dress and sidesaddle and horseback wedding and that hideous pink thing she's wearing on the cover, is kind of sweet.  Samantha and Tor open presents and discover that they're going to Ireland for a month for a honeymoon.

Then we are blasted back to the present, in which apparently Samantha has been talking to herself the whole time Ashleigh, Christina, and Cindy have been cleaning out the room.  Well, what can I say.  I guess Cindy doesn't have a monopoly on complete and total obliviousness.

Points of Interest:

• We find out that Max Smith went to vet school in California and is presumably a vet out there.  This is a pretty good throwaway line, since a) it explains what happened to him, b) it gives a reasonable explanation for why he and his mom aren't around, and c) he mentioned wanting to be a vet in the first book he appeared in (Glory's Triumph).  Of course, Cindy "wanted" to be a vet then too.  How times have changed.
• Apparently Samantha sometimes slips "into a hint of the Irish brogue she had picked up from her years in Ireland."  Having lived with people from the UK and Australia in high school, I can verify that this is true, but my god, it sounds so ridiculous.
• For Yvonne's wedding, Samantha carries a bouquet of "yellow rosebuds and pink-tinged orchids … tiny blue forget-me-nots and delicate fronds of maidenhair fern." Maybe Mary Newhall was a florist in another life. 
• Apparently Tor's barn has been called Whisperwood the whole time, like say, during those 15 Old Generation books when it didn't have a name.  This makes more sense than Tor and Samantha moving back from Ireland and buying a different barn and naming it Whisperwood, but it doesn't seem like a very Mr. Nelson-ish name to me.  (Claire also mentioned this in her recap of Racing Parker, the first time we encountered this Whispercrap.)
• Wonderpony watch:  Vic Taleski rides a daughter of Glory and Princess.  Her name isn't mentioned; my money's on March to Princess.
• Leap of Faith appears in this book as a broodmare.  What the eff … I don't even try to keep track of her anymore.
• Mandy draws a picture of a chestnut horse, which "looks exactly like Shining."  Except for the part where Shining is a roan.  Perhaps she's turning into a full Wonderpony.
• Ashleigh rides a two-year-old name Jazz Dancer, a son of Blues King and Precocious.  I think they should have insisted on a paternity test.  With that name, he is obviously by Jazzman.

Next up:  Ah, the lost-diary-from-the-past book that rivals Cindy's Desert Adventure for the winner of the Stupidest Title Award:  Samantha's Irish Luck.

Here's to all of the brave horses!

Champions
1984

The thing that most astonishes me about this movie is that Kirstie Alley is involved. Seriously, the second her name appeared on the screen I had to blink and reconsider what I was about to watch.

So, if you're English or into steeplechasing in general, you might know about Bob Champion and/or Aldaniti. Since I am not English or all that much into steeplechasing, I don't know either. But then this movie came out when I was three, so whatever. Anyway, Bob Champion was a big amazing steeplechase jockey and Aldaniti was a big amazing steeplechaser. Right at the high point of his career, Bob is struck down with cancer. About three quarters of this movie is about Bob and cancer, so if you're squeamish you can just skim right through that. There's lots of groaning and and sweating and needles and dry heaving...but do not worry! Bob gets over it and moves into the last quarter of the movie, which is the fun part.

While he's trying to get back into shape, Aldaniti suffers what is considered a career ending injury himself. Only he miraculously recovers just in time to act as Bob's personal motivation. Bob and Aldaniti get better, find themselves in the Grand National, and this is a true story so you can guess the ending.

• At the beginning of the movie, Bob shows up in some Southern state in the U.S., where, as we've been shown previously, women are insatiable nymphomaniacs. He finds Kirstie Alley, a large animal vet who has one purpose: sleep with Bob so she can get a look at his testicles and inform him that he should probably get that swollen area checked out.

• Bob and Kirstie's deep connection amounts to: 1) Kirstie is massaging this horse, 2) Bob would like to be massaged, 3) Kirstie rolls her eyes, 4) inexplicably, Kirstie and Bob have sex and Bob gets his massage, 5) Kirstie says she feels safe with Bob because he's leaving, 6) Kirstie: When did that horse kick you? Bob: Three months ago in Stratford. Kirstie: Shakespeare! 7) Kirstie: You need to get that checked, like, now. 8) Two years later, Kirstie has been pining for Bob and he rejects her for Jo. Sorry, Kirstie. Southern girls are only around for cheap sex, not lasting relationships.
  

• Speaking of Jo, just who does she think she is? Bob needs help, you guys. He's not as strong as he used to be, and really needs love and support and a spotter when he works out. Jo, being the selfish girl she is, has elected to better herself while he's been away in America rejecting Kirstie, and decides to take business classes. Bob is suitably unimpressed. She should, like, totally not do that because it's a waste of time and money when she could be spotting him when he works out!

• During his cancer, Bob is taking a break at his sister's and watching his niece jump her pony. Little niece asks him what he thinks and he tells her the pony is leaving her behind and she's all "That isn't polite, is it?! Tell me I'm good!" Bob sticks to his principles, but I think this girl is a Cindy character waiting to happen.
  

• Aldaniti plays himself in this movie, which I find extremely impressive.

• I watched this on an HD television that makes horse racing look like the most impressive sport that ever existed, so maybe it's just the television that made me sit in awe of the Grand National scene, but that race was intense. At one point, the whole scene goes into slow motion and these horses are literally flying across the screen. Everyone says Seabiscuit somehow revolutionized how horse racing is filmed, but I'm pretty sure this movie makes Seabiscuit look tame.

• At the same time, if you'd rather not watch lots of horses and jockeys falling, this movie may not be for you. Also, if you don't like small children yelling "yay!" this movie might not be for you.
  

Well, I liked the end of it. The first half was easily not entertaining. For those interested in watching it, but not interested in putting forth effort to get it, it's on YouTube. Here's the Grand National scene (although not as awesome, because it's been reformatted).

The Derby Stallion: a movie that unfortunately happened.

The Derby Stallion (2005)

The Heart of a Boy. The Soul of a Champion.

An alcoholic former horse-trainer perceives in a fifteen-year-old boy a unique gift of horsemanship and makes it possible for the boy to conceive his dream and pursue it.

Two things: Zac Efron and Horses. That's the driving force behind this movie, which never saw theatres and was a direct-to-DVD release after High School Musical made Zac Efron the newest craze among teenage girls everywhere. If the producers could have realistically called the tagline: Zac Efron rides horses!!!!, they would have. Zac Efron + horses = crazy girl meltdown. At least, that's what was intended.

The movie opens up with what looks like old clips of the Kentucky Derby. It's a packed racetrack, horses are running on a dirt track (this much is obvious) and then it tries to segue into sepia-toned new footage of a horse and rider racing over grass. All the while someone is talking about how he ran once in "the Derby" and won and something or another. It was amazingly garbled. In fact, there was a story in there somewhere, but all I caught was "the Derby" and "I won" before we meet our two main characters in present, non-sepia time.

Houston Jones (Bill Cobbs) is the man who won "the Derby." But now he's old, spends all of his time drinking something out of a flask, and imparting wise advice to Patrick (Zac Efron), who doesn't know what he wants to do despite being only fifteen. You see, Patrick's dad was a major league baseball player before being injured and becoming a full time dad who won't stop pressuring his son to be the major league player he wasn't. Patrick keeps deliberately skipping baseball practice to spend time with Houston, a fact that keeps worrying his parents because there's no telling what horrible influences Houston is having on their impressionable young son.

Meanwhile, we have Randy and his sidekick, who spend their time riding around on four wheelers, bashing mailboxes, and routinely destroying Houston's vegetable stand. Randy is the best steeplechase jockey in the county, although he always corrects everyone and says "best steeplechase jockey in the state!" Like this matters? County, state...you're in America. No one cares. Randy is sort of a blond version of what I think Joanna Campbell wanted Brad Townsend to be, and in that way I suppose she failed miserably because Randy's an asshole. For instance, I will let this clip speak for me:



Hell, why even bother with an entry at this point? Because Zac Efron is in this, rest assured that you can watch the whole movie on YouTube in ten minute segments. Nevertheless, I will continue. Anyway, Houston eventually buys this horse called Rusty and gives him to Patrick, who has decided he would really like to swap baseball practice for horseback riding. He quits the baseball team, much to his father's initial distress, and starts to work with Rusty instead. Houston quits drinking (he calls this habit "lubrication" and at one point refers to alcohol as "libations" so I sort of hate him), remarkably suffers no withdrawal symptoms, and starts to train Patrick to jump. Although his method is completely hands off. In fact, he sort of just stands there and mutters, "Good. A little better. *grumble grumble*" I don't see how this is helpful, but Patrick just blossoms and before you know it he's naturally skipping over four feet jumps. Although I should point out that he is totally not skipping over four feet jumps. Rusty the horse is a chestnut, so they keep showing shots of Patrick on the chestnut as he approaches a jump, and then the shot switches very suddenly to the bay legs of another horse doing the actual jumping. It's so noticeable I had to wonder what these people thought they were doing. After this they take Rusty to "the track" to "qualify" for the Derby Cup. Rusty qualifies and gets into the race and Patrick's father is excited because the winner gets a scholarship and I am so confused as to what this race is that I'm just going to ignore all of these weird details and move on.

So things are just going great until Houston has to confront Randy and his sidekick while they're routinely destroying his vegetable stand. Randy is obstinate as per the usual, and then Houston has a heart attack. Patrick and his sort of girlfriend find him, but Houston refuses treatment. They leave him in his house so he can pull out the picture of his dead girlfriend and die by himself. Patrick is crushed. They bury Houston to gospel music, alerting me for the first time that this movie takes place in the south. I think Zac Efron was even attempting a southern accent, but clearly that observation was a late one. Later on I finally noticed the track has a sign that says Atlanta, so hey. Atlanta. Who knew? At first I thought they were in Colorado.

Patrick goes through his stages of grief and refuses to ride Rusty. His sort of girlfriend gets pissed at him and goes to Houston's house to do something only to find that it is going to be foreclosed on by the county. I'm not sure if they meant foreclosed on by the bank or not, but whatever. So she goes into the house to get some things before the house is locked up and everything is taken to auction, finding a package meant for Patrick. The package contains Houston's old, but obviously completely new, racing silks. Patrick is touched and decides to enter the race! Only Randy has taken strides to make sure Patrick is not a problem and has sabotaged the truck. So Patrick's dad appears, fixes the truck, and off they go to the race.



And his blond sort of girlfriend makes out with him in front of his family. Nice. Then they rush up to the race official guy and she says that Patrick is "very qualified." Like, yeah. We know that, blond girl. Official guy lets them race and Patrick races and Randy tries to shove him off the horse but Rusty is too good for this and Patrick wins. Then Patrick puts the winning trophy on Houston's grave as we get more gospel music or whatever that was.

• The Derby Cup. I have issues with this whole event, because when is a race ever named Derby Cup?

• Rusty's name. It's a basic, plain horse name, but I love that all the other horses in the race have normal racehorse names except for Rusty. It made the race call pretty amusing.

That's it for this movie. It was...not good. The race scene was passable, but the rest of it was more or less ridiculous. Plus, I'm pretty sure this whole movie took place over something like three weeks, and do I really need to point out that a beginner is not going to be in a steeplechase within three weeks of beginning? Within a year of beginning? Or ever?

Blind Beauty: bringing the crazy back to horse stories.

Blind Beauty
by K.M. Peyton
Published: 1999

I didn't really know what I was getting into with this book when I picked it up. To me it was just a young adult book with a horse on the cover, so I mindlessly added it to the stack of books I already had and checked them all out. This one is on the long side -- 360 pages -- but I'm pretty sure it could have been cut down severely to get the whole story in. But that would have meant deleting all the exclamatory sentences that come out of nowhere, and as we all know, you can't just do that in horse stories because that takes away most of the completely insane emotional turmoil our characters have to go through. God forbid. Anyway.

Tessa has major attitude and an impossible dream—not a great combination for success. But she believes that fate has delivered the ungainly horse Buffoon to her, and Tessa is determined never to be separated from him. What's more, she intends to one day become a jockey and ride Buffoon in the Grand National. But how can a girl with a violent temper and a “can't do” philosophy gain the physical strength, courage, and money needed to become a jockey—especially when her stepfather would like nothing better than to see her fail? Determination and grit may not be enough—but Tessa's not going to let go without giving it her all.

Okay, the thing about this book is that you can see how it clearly could be good. It really had the potential. Unfortunately it took that potential and then sort of shoved it into the 1960's and decided that "major attitude" could very well mean "homicidal tendencies." Who can tell the difference, right? I'll get to that part later, because it's really the absolute best part.

So, much to my extreme vexation, this book starts out in Ireland. I made a promise to myself that I wasn't going to read another book set in Ireland for at least twelve months, and I just about had to shut it down after the first chapter because the first character we hear about is named Declan. It was almost too much. However, I soldiered on. Declan was having a tough time, mainly because his only mare just gave birth to a filly with no eyes. His wife wants to put the foal down immediately, but since the mare is so old and has this fantastic progeny record, he refuses and keeps the foal. They name this horse Shiner.

Speed up to four years down the line. Declan has become a drunk and his wife left him, taking their eight-year-old daughter, Tessa, with her to Liverpool (thank GOD, we've moved to England and therefore I can now enjoy this book). Declan's bred Shiner, producing a ugly colt that Shiner immediately feels like killing. So Declan saves the colt and feels like getting drunk again because his life sucks. Blah blah blah.

Speed forward another four years. Tessa is now twelve and her mother has remarried to this rich guy called Maurice. Maurice, we are very casually informed, is evil. He likes to run over hedgehogs in his spare time and is just, well, evil. I don't know why, but we are repeatedly informed that he's a jackass and he sort of acts like a jackass sometimes because he wants Tessa in a boarding school because he's tired of her and I don't blame him. Fresh out of getting kicked out of her third boarding school, Tessa comes home and muses to herself about how much she'd like to poison Maurice. She even went so far as to buy arsenic or something, so she could do it slowly, over time, and laugh as he dies. This homicidal rage is chalked up as feisty attitude by the author, who somehow thinks her character should be allowed to physically harm anyone she wants because her stepfather is a jerk. Really, I'm not exaggerating. Cross Tessa and she's not going to fantasize about cutting you. She will cut you and then laugh while you bleed to death.

So she comes home and immediately breaks into some of the sherry, raging about how she hates everything and everyone. She hates her stepbrother for being annoying, she hates her mother for being stupid and staying with Maurice, she hates Maurice, she hates school, etc. She has no friends, because she probably tried to kill anyone who attempted to befriend her. She's scary, actually.

Anyway, Maurice is all pissed off because he can't get her into another school, but since it's almost summer he just decides to get her a job and out of his hair. So he shoves her to some tenants who deal with horses and she hates that. She goes, hates everyone, informs them all that she hates her stepfather (repeatedly) and then rages some more about how she hates them all. She's determined to get fired from the job, but no one will do it so she just hates them even more. If I read the word "hate" one more time I was going to put down the book. Unfortunately for me these people get a fresh group of horses in and Tessa is given the ugliest of the bunch to look after. Enraged that she has to deal with this ugly horse, Tessa informs the horse that she hates it (sigh) and that it's ugly as sin and she wants nothing to do with him. The horse, aptly named Buffoon, just sort of looks at her, and then she starts crying. I feel absolutely nothing for her. In fact, I'm happy she's crying at this point because that means she's not trying to kill someone. Then she finds out that the horse is out of Shiner and she goes from hating it to loving it in about two seconds flat and starts doing an impressive version of Cindy McLean...if Cindy had been homicidal.

Anyway, she gets shoved into another school and Tessa is so pissed off she's determined to be expelled and she does this by shoving food in this bulky girl's face and then pulling a knife to defend herself against any revenge food attacks. Seriously. So she's expelled. Yay Tessa. She goes skipping off to the farm again so she can learn to ride Buffoon. There's some screaming about how Buffoon is really hers and how dare anyone inform her that he's actually owned by someone else, and then Buffoon miraculously becomes Wonder's Champion and beats all the other horses in a work with Tessa aboard, doing her best Cindy impression. It's awful. Really, just makes you want to gouge out your eyes. But Tessa is "a natural" and therefore we're supposed to think this is possible. Not to mention this is steeplechasing. Do we spend any time on Tessa learning to jump? Nope. She just does it. But then the book is helped out in this area by skipping another four years. We'll just assume she learned to jump somewhere in there.

So four years go by. Tessa is now sixteen and ready to race ride. Her first race she falls and breaks her wrist. Poor her. Then Buffoon has suddenly become so good in the last four years that he's ready for the Grand National, only just before the race someone steals his magical pony friend! Gasp! So Tessa just knows Maurice is the one that stole the pony, which is so earth shattering that Buffoon refuses to eat, and so she runs over to the mansion and brandishes a knife at anything that moves. Her mother calms her down, and they go to the Grand National and they, like, come in fifth. They're all thrilled, and Tessa's dad shows up, but is all drunk and just randomly walks off. So that was her wonderful father-daughter moment. Tessa goes home, has dinner with her wonderfully loving family, and winds up throwing food at her stepfather and storms out back to the farm. However, on her way to the farm she discovers the pony stabled on her stepfather's property, and overcome with more rage, she runs straight back to the mansion, grabs a carving knife, and stabs Maurice in the chest with it.

Yeah, so our lovely main character attempts to kill her stepfather, gets put away until she's 18, and Buffoon gets sold because his owner dies, and Maurice lives because Tessa is a weakling and didn't stab him harder or enough. In the chest. With a knife.

So, Tessa's all forlorn that she didn't kill Maurice. Then her jockey friend, Tom, visits her and he finds Buffoon and she gets out of jail/the insane asylum, and is all forlorn again because Buffoon has cataracts. So she gets her mom to give her money for cataract surgery for the horse and then he can see again and Maurice beats up her mom when he finds out, so her mom leaves him and starts to have sex with this other guy who's actually nice and they go to the Grand National again and she rides Buffoon and they of course win. (That was the last half of the book, for anyone wondering.) And Tessa and Tom kiss, because there was this whole "can she love anyone besides a horse" plot strung around in there. And I think she's, like, 22 by the end of the book. I'm pretty sure there was another four year skip in time, but I was wasn't paying close enough attention. That whole bloody incident midway through kinda derailed me.

Points:

• While I was reading this thing, I kept convincing myself it couldn't have possibly been published in 1999. Really, it reads like it was published in 1960.

• Whenever they talk about a horse being put down, they always say the horse is going to be shot. Again, I couldn't help thinking...1999? What? Are the English still shooting horses when they break down on racetracks, or is this just something they say? Are they delightfully clinging to old phrases or what?

• At one point one of the other exercise boys says something remarkably true and yet not totally positive about Buffoon and Tessa throws a curry comb at his head and cuts up his cheek. Everyone remarks that Tessa should really grow up. Yeah...and here I keep thinking that someone should have noticed the signs.

• So, Maurice really is sort of evil. But it's in a totally out of nowhere and ridiculous way. Like...his horse doesn't perform well on the track so he wants the trainer to shut it up in its stall without exercise, food, or water for a week. The trainer refuses to do this, so Maurice has the horse shot. Really, yes, this is evil behavior and we're supposed to hate Maurice for this just as much as Tessa does but I don't buy it. It's stupid. It's like what a twelve-year-old fangirl would dream up.
  

• Tessa also desperately wants her mother to leave Maurice, but she doesn't ever say this in a positive way. It's just screaming, waving around knives, and yelling. Then she has to remark wildly on why her mother is just so stupid. Supportive! And the thing is, this happens mostly when Tessa is sixteen. So it's obvious someone is still a spoiled brat with no concept of the real world.
  

• Also, I must say that the cutesy cursive chapter headings are really out of place in this book.
  

Amusingly enough, if you go to the Amazon page for this book it gets mostly five stars. I can't decide why this is. Perhaps I'm not giving it a fair shot, but I really could not stand Tessa. While the book improves after she gives up the really unnerving urge to slice people to shreds and bathe in their blood, by the time you get there you feel like you've been through hell and back. I also might be a little irked that I accidentally picked up a book with Irish people involved, but for some reason I think it's more the fact that Tessa is a raging psychopath and the story is the most unrealistic of Thoroughbred plots, only on steroids.