Hoofprints in the Snow, TB #56

Hoofprints in the Snow
Thoroughbred #56
by Karle Dickerson

I honestly think that some of these books are little rewards for the round table of authors on this series. They slave away at writing characters they basically didn't create in a story they didn't create, and try desperately to insert things they have created to keep them interested. Like Jennifer Chu's California characters, Mary Anderson's Crazy Backstory of Doom, and Karle Dickerson's Lyssa. And they don't get any love for these creations at all, which is kind of sad. But then you have, well, Lyssa.

Lyssa Hynde knows the Wyoming winters are cold, lonely, and dangerous. But she wouldn't give them up for anything. There's nothing she likes better than to gallop her three-day event horse, Blue, through knee-high fresh powder snow. It's snow, okay?

One day when she's out for her morning ride, Lyssa follows a trail of mysterious hoof prints that take her high into the mountains. Climbing a snowdrift, she and Blue set off an avalanche that builds in force as it heads straight for her ranch.

Will Lyssa make it home in time to warn her family and save the other animals? The avalanche is not a plot point, and no one needs saved. Move on already. Will she find the mystery horse that led her astray in the first place? 

Frickin' Lyssa.

Here's the deal: it's January. For your reference, we were practically headed into May in the last book, when Parker went off to England and Christina had literally wedged herself into a corner to stare in fascination at her own fingers. We should be right on top of the Kentucky Derby at this point, but for whatever reason we have been hauled back four months in time to visit Frickin' Lyssa, who has not a) been accepted to train with USET yet, has not b) been to ROLEX yet, and c) has not met Tony yet. I think Tony was in one of those Parker books? Maybe I have a vague memory of this because he's introduced in this one. Whatever. The important thing to note: this makes no sense.

The cover...I have no feelings toward it. The cover artist really ramped up the Western outfit, but for all intents and purposes it fits the book. Lyssa does (sigh) ride Blue around a lot without a saddle, at least before she starts to take current events seriously.

So we begin with Lyssa. Frickin' Lyssa. She's bemoaning the price of supplements or something and basically has the same epiphany that Parker had in another book previously: she needs sponsors. Perhaps the feed store would sponsor her! But before she can feel that swift kick of disillusionment, she is distracted by a woman trying to buy a puppy. Naturally, this woman is suspect because she is not Lyssa and all animals in the world are at risk of being abused if they are not connected to the main character.

So Frickin' Lyssa adopts the puppy out from under the lady, who is peeved but gives up the dog. Lyssa, whose family is strapped for cash, immediately regrets this move, but hauls the puppy home and introduces it to her incredibly open minded family amidst chili and waxing poetical about the mountains and the fresh powder (ahem, snow. Just say snow already!).

Later on, Lyssa's friend Gabriela shows up to inform her that Mystic, the horse Lyssa found for her on one of those random trips teens take to California, is super lame and she's giving her up to Mrs. Peters, crazy animal lady down the road. Mystic will have a forever home and Gabriela is free to pursue boys. Everyone wins. Lyssa feels a deep sense of disdain and decides to ride Blue around in the powder for a while, coming across the school she doesn't go to (because she is "homeschooled.") There, a boy pops out of nowhere and insists that she leave. He is the security guard, you see. It is very important that Lyssa not trample school property.

Being a girl, Lyssa can't help but notice how pretty he is, which I would say violates her determination to judge Gabriela for liking boys and not Mystic, but naturally Blue isn't lame so whatevs. Like boys all you want, Lyssa.

Then there's a party that Gabriela drags Lyssa to so she can dump her by the punch bowl in favor of the new boyfriend, leaving Lyssa free to run into the boy security guard again. His name is Tony. They dance. I'm sure it was titillating, a Western version of the Samantha era's "haunting flamenco," if you will. But I digress.

Blah blah blah. Things happen. Lyssa insists on checking out the school again, and finds hoofprints leading into the mountains, where she assumes Tony has taken the horse to hide out, which is stupid because of the avalanche risk. But of course Frickin' Lyssa follows him up anyway, and just as it's getting a little too dangerous to be plowing around through horse-chest-deep high "powder", Blue flips out and starts an avalanche.

And then girl and horse outrace an avalanche.

So, hold on to your seats, you guys. It's going to be action packed from here on out.

Blue proves himself to be super amazing, runs all the way back to the ranch, and deposits a hysterical Lyssa on the ground. The avalanche missed the ranch entirely, detouring into a canyon somewhere, so everyone can be reassured that nothing awful will ever happen to these people ever. Her mom insists she stay home, but Lyssa can't just let Tony and the horse alone and is back out the next morning, with friend Mitch in tow. They find Tony, discover that he has Mystic of all horses, and listen to his story of woe (he is totally not a horse thief you guys...unless you take into account that he took someone's horse off their property without asking and has no intent of bringing it back. It's not stealing if you've got good intentions, right?)

He insists that Mrs. Peters is a fraud, and she sells her superfluous horses to the meat packers when things are getting tight. Lyssa is shocked, because no one has ever known Mrs. Peters to be anything but an animal hoarder, which is totally okay and couldn't possibly go wrong. She and Mitch are both suspicious of Tony's story, so they take Tony and Mystic back to Lyssa's ranch and Lyssa rumbles off in Mitch's truck to check out Mrs. Peters, only to discover that Mrs. Peters is the lady that wanted the puppy from the first chapter.

Le shock! Mrs. Peters only wanted the puppy because it's a purebred with papers and could probably get money for it...hmmmm, yeah. Totally reasonable. And then the meat packers helpfully show up, and Lyssa conveniently discovers that one of the horses with Mrs. Peters was on a stolen horse flier at the feed store. So Lyssa hides a bridle in her Thinsulate, gets it on the stolen horse, and tears out of there bareback as Mrs. Peters (I keep envisioning an old lady, for some reason) jumps in Mitch's truck and chases after them.

Frickin' Lyssa, because she's amazing, loses Mrs. Peters and heads straight for the police station. So then the cops swarm everywhere, take in Tony, Mystic, Mrs. Peters and leave Lyssa wondering why life is horrible. Now Tony will be arrested for stealing a horse and deported to Arizona, where everyone knows jerks come from. It's accepted in Lyssa World as fact. But, of course, that doesn't happen. Don't worry you guys, Tony rides back on Mystic and says he bought her for cheap and he'll fix her feet because not only is he a 19-year-old horse thief with a heart of gold, he is also a budding eventer and an awesome blacksmith who knows "techniques." Also, he's going to stay in Wyoming or Montana or whatever and train with Lyssa and work for her dad and work for his relatives in Billings because he has them. So now Lyssa can blissfully fawn all over his spotty teenage neck scruff all she likes.

Hooray. USET invites for everyone!

Flicka: Part Deux

Flicka 2
2010

Carrie is a big-city teenager whose life is turned upside down when she moves to a horse ranch in Wyoming to live with her father. But everything changes when Carrie meets Flicka, a wild, jet-black mustang who's just as free-spirited and strong-willed as Carrie. The two form a special bond and Carrie opens her heart to her father and a handsome, local boy, but when a jealous rival puts Flicka's life in jeopardy, Carrie must do whatever it takes to save her best friend.

I would just like to point out that I had the option of watching this as an in-flight movie back in July, but I decided not to do that because I was sitting next to someone I did not want to embarrass myself in front of. Probably not because I was watching a really dumb movie, but because I would have started snickering like crazy in public. Sort of like what happened when I watched Twilight over the Atlantic and my friend kept giving me these weird looks when I couldn't contain my laughter.

I wasn't going to do that again. I am an adult, damn it!

Star's Chance: And then they got lost in Montana.

Star's Chance

Thoroughbred #45

by Karle Dickerson

2001

Will Star ever regain his spirit?

At last, Wonder's Star has recovered from the illness that halted his promising racing career so suddenly. The vet says he'll be back on the track in no time. But Christina Reese is convinced the colt has lost his spirit. She can't seem to communicate with him like she used to. Christina needs help.

When Lyssa Hynde offers to work her magic with Star, Christina takes the colt to Lyssa's ranch in Montana to rehabilitate. But Montana is worlds away from the track, and Christina and Star are lost there. Will Christina and Star learn to take risks and trust each other again?

The last time I read about Lyssa, I remember wishing she would drown in a shallow puddle of water. That desire really hasn't gone away, so I was curious to see how I'd react to Star's Chance, which initially seems like a flagrant device to get Lyssa back into the storyline.

Because we all love Lyssa.

Star's Chance begins with Star having rebounded from death, which seems like a pretty nifty trick because the last we saw him he was practically cast in his stall and only Christina's magical girl tears saved him from certain doom. The vet proclaims him fine, but cautions Chris about taking it easy with Star until he regains his strength. There's no telling if he'll ever bounce back to racing form, and the vet takes it even further by saying there's no telling he'll ever be strong enough to even breed. But what does he know? He is merely a vet! Christina knows what is best for her wonder pony, okay? And he's going to run in the Kentucky Derby next year, because that's what's best for the horse.

About two and a half days go by, with Christina getting ever more frustrated with Star's "lack of spirit" when she rides him. Parker mentions that if Lyssa were here, she would have Star back to his old self in a couple of hours, max. Then he has a most fantastic idea! Perhaps Christina should take Star to Lyssa, who lives on a dude ranch in Montana. Christina is certainly unenthused about this idea, telling him he is "absolutely nuts" and in no way is she taking her wonder pony to Montana to re-enact The Horse Whisperer, just without the death and the sex.

Enter Brad Townsend, because where plot goes stagnant, Brad Townsend has to be called in to stir up the pot. Asked to accompany Parker to a Townsend party, Christina is forced to stand around with people who are just as well off as she is, but have the gall to actually act rich and wear sparkly things. The nerve.

Instantly, Brad appears by Christina to tell her that he's heard about her troubles with Star, this being the third day after Star's been cleared for some light activity. Christina begins to ask how he heard, but he says, "No, it wasn't Parker. But I have my ways." Yes, he reads minds. Stunned, Christina instantly goes on alert, falling back to her default stance as indignant horse loving teen, asking him why he even cares, apparently having forgotten that Brad only antagonizes her because it is basically good sport. Brad insists that selling Star was the best business decision he ever made, taking the time to lift up her hand and point out her blisters and broken nails, because he is a master at deduction.

Christina promises that he'll regret selling Star, and he pretty much tells her that no, he will not. Then he saunters off, his work here done. Game, set, match. Brad Townsend wins at life. Immediately Christina rushes back to Parker, insisting that they have to go now so she can call Lyssa and go to Montana to help Star. Despite having only worked with Star for three days. I think someone has some instant gratification issues.

Because no one in Thoroughbred goes to school, and Ashleigh is a horrible parent, Christina goes to Montana with Lyssa's uncle, subjecting herself and me to every Western stereotype you can think of for the next hundred pages. Star is loaded onto a trailer with cattle, hauled by a truck that could very well fall apart at any second, with the radio station permanently tuned to Western music. Once they arrive in Montana, Christina is ushered into the house, where everything is beige and tastefully decorated in horse themed or Navajo prints. Instantly, some guy named Ray asks Christina if her horse's spirit is broken, and what the hell it totally is not! How dare he kind of be ignorantly astute like that! Only Christina can use similar verbiage to basically say the same thing.

Lyssa tries to placate Christina by saying that Ray doesn't know any better. He is, after all, from Arizona, where jerks come from. Ray continues to try to win Christina over, using common forms of conversation starters that Christina construes as "creepy" behavior. When she's not avoiding Ray, she's on super defensive mode with Lyssa, because despite the fact that she trailered Star all the way to Montana with heifers she ultimately wants nothing to do with Lyssa's supposed advice. Also despite being totally about Lyssa's training techniques back in Close Call.

Eventually, Lyssa demands that Christina take Star out into a reservoir in order for him to fight out his problems with her, because that's what the American Indians do, I guess. Christina isn't having any of that, no matter how many American Indians gentled horses this way. Star is a racehorse, damn it. She cannot hurt him, despite the fact that she's trailered him all the way to Montana for seemingly no reason and is about to take him on a round up type thing in the wilderness, where he will inevitably get lost and wind up roaming the countryside in search of his previously completely insane personality.

So this is what they do. Star gets loose up in the mountains, and Christina speeds off after him. Eventually they all get lost, Christina finds Star predictably injured, and winds up spending the night with him out in the wood somewhere. The next morning, Christina rides Star (sans tack, of course) into a river, where Star completely flips out and does his fight the water deal that brings his old personality back. And then they both climb out of the river and die of hypothermia.

Or not. Lyssa finds them, and all is well. Christina gets to put a checkmark next to Montana on her list of states that she has visited, and Star is set to win the Kentucky Derby. Surely he will not finish, you know, last. Or anything. That would be entirely too unjust.

• There is one thing I liked about this book: Christina never really admits that Lyssa's advice helped or did anything positive at all. By the end, she's really had it and starts to freak out at Lyssa about how it is entirely useless to train horses to open gates. And Lyssa actually does manage to look a little sheepish about it, because her horse was the one that let Star out to begin with.
• I really don't buy Parker telling Christina to take Star to Lyssa. I would accept this plot if Christina had dreamed up this idea, and then gotten totally overwhelmed when she finally gets there because she is a mother hen when it comes to her horse.
• Ashleigh, you suck so much. When Christina calls her mother up to tell her about this round up she's taking Star on, the very round up in which she loses Star, the only thing Ashleigh says is, "Sounds like it will be an adventure." Right about here is when you put your foot down and demand that your daughter bring her damn wonder pony back to Kentucky, because if the magical trick is thrashing around in water, I'm pretty sure you could have done that at home.
• Three days! She only waits three days before taking Star to Montana. Seriously.

And that was a Thoroughbred book.

I imagine being named Tex in Oklahoma would be a hardship.

Tex
(1982)

I never knew this before, but Matt Dillon is in three movie adaptations of S.E. Hinton novels: The Outsiders, Rumble Fish, and Tex. From this I assume that Matt Dillon was the perfect portrayal of all poor, white males everywhere in the eighties. I've only read one S.E. Hinton novel, Taming the Star Runner, and from the info I gleaned from that book, a young Matt Dillon would have been perfect for the role.

Also, from Taming the Star Runner and this adaptation of Tex, I think S.E. Hinton novels are hilarious. In that the plot's going along true to normal YA conventions, and then suddenly there are drug dealers! And guns! And serious injuries! And seriousness! Oh my god!

So I find seriousness amusing. I can't help it.

That said, I'm reviewing Tex because the main character loves his horse, and his brother sells his horse because they are poor. And their father is a rodeo clown, or something, and refuses to come home and be an adult. And Tex doesn't know how far to go with a girl, only to be helpfully told by his brother that the girl will tell him when to stop. Yes, all responsibility thrown onto the girl. As always. Nicely played, Tex's brother.

The deal here is this. Mason is the responsible brother, and Tex is the brother who is slightly ditsy and loves his horse. To feed them, Mason sells the horses and Tex goes ballistic. They get into a groping fight on the kitchen floor. Two-liter sodas are thrown at walls, Mason lands a punch, and Tex runs off to search the Oklahoma country for his horse. This doesn't work out for him, because hiking around on foot in search of a horse that has been sold is clearly a waste of time.

Things happen that I don't really care about because I didn't. Only at one point Matt Dillon and Emilio Estevez make eyes at each other across a patch of Oklahoma dust used for dirt biking. The music swells. Will they ever be friends again? Will that boy with the flowing long hair and the pink comb get between them? Will Emilio crash his bike after taking off on a dare? (Yes.) Will Matt be awesome on the same bike afterward? (Yes.) Will they get back to being friends again, despite Emilio's father's disapproval? (Yes!) Sweet, sweet teenage love.

Oh, um. Tex is supposed to be in love with Emilio's sister, Jaime? I guess? Anyway. Things are going along fairly normally, to YA standards. A fortune teller even tells Tex that he isn't going to get his horse back, much to his chagrin. And then they, in true S.E. Hinton fashion, pick up a hitchhiker. And he pulls a gun on them. Shocker. I was so shocked.

Tex saves the day, and the hitchhiker is shot dead by the police. After this, more drama ensues with the return of rodeo clown dad, which means that Tex has to discover that he is not the biological son of rodeo clown dad. (Honestly, he should be thrilled with this.) Dad decides to buy back Tex's horse, which has been sold to a Christina character. The Christina character tells him that the horse is hers. Fair and square, damn it! Who the hell is he to just walk into her residential backyard and stare at her as she jumps fences? Christina informs him that she has renamed the horse Gentleman, and Tex is disgusted, as most would be in the face of such snobbery. So he gets together with this drug dealer friend, which naturally ends in Tex getting shot in the stomach.

So he wanders around a little bit, bleeding all over his shoes. Unexpected, maybe. Or maybe this is what all Oklahoma kids do? Having been raised in northwest Arkansas, I surprisingly don't know the answer to this. Sadly.

Anyway, Tex survives. And everything is okay. He gets a job at a horse farm. And his brother goes to college in Indiana. And, um, it was uplifting or something?

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.

There's Something About Flicka

Flicka (2006)
My Friend Flicka (1943)

Most people know the story of how these movies came to be, but I'll go over it anyway. Mary O'Hara wrote My Friend Flicka, the first of a trilogy, in 1941. Two years later, the movie came out. Thunderhead (my personal favorite) closely followed. Apparently Green Grass of Wyoming was also made into a movie, but that one is the lesser known of the three. About sixty years pass, and for whatever random reason someone comes along and decides to remake My Friend Flicka. Only this time it will be with a girl named Katy and Flicka will be a female version of the Black Stallion. Awesome, right? Maybe? Sort of?

Flicka (2006)
Despite thinking that turning Ken into a Katy was a really bad, but fairly obvious course of action, I do like this movie. Even if Katy is annoying, has few manners, and makes really poor decisions that would've won her a Darwin Award if she hadn't been graced with main character status. Even if her brother is the guy who plays Jason in True Blood, and as a result I snickered every single time he arrived on screen. Even if I could draw parallels between this and Joanna Campbell's The Wild Mustang until the end of time. It may have been hit and miss concerning the original story, but it's a pretty movie and it held my attention.

Downsides are it's predictable, Katy is every horse story main character rolled into one, and Banner is not there. I mean, come on. Banner was the most awesome ranch stallion to ever exist. Flicka is rocking the Black Stallion look. Rob has this "I am a man, and you live under my roof, blah blah blah" attitude that does a 180 about five minutes from the end. Upsides are the pretty, it is the opposite of boring, and at least there is some action to speak of.

My Friend Flicka (1943)
This is the horse story classic and helped set the standard for the "horse of my own" plots you see so frequently. Ken wants a horse, sets his heart on a filly his father disapproves of because her grandsire is The Albino, a local mustang stallion, and in order to win the approval of his father he goes about attempting to bond with this filly everyone claims can't be tamed. Today, I find this interesting given that so many current movies make a big deal about how fantastic and wonderful mustangs are, because in 1943 they made it a point to connect Flicka's crazy gene to The Albino being a mustang. There is no "mustangs are worthwhile and beautiful creatures that should be cherished!" line in this movie. Ken just basically wants to be friends with Flicka, and thinks he's up to the task of taming her. The main story revolves around Ken and Rob, and Ken trying not to be the eternal screw up who causes stampedes and picks the worthless mustang filly.

Downsides are it's slow going. Not a whole lot happens here. And there was one weird moment where Rob's advice to Ken concerning gentling Flicka had to do with taking away everything she knows, her friends, etc. And I thought that was insanely creepy, despite the fact that he was talking about a horse. Upsides are that the characters actually don't annoy me, and Flicka is not black. She is sorrel. Like she's supposed to be.

And in case you weren't finished with Flicka...

Flicka (2010)
When her grandmother is diagnosed with dementia, skateboarder Carrie McLaughlin (Tammin Sursok) is forced to leave the pavement of the big city behind to go live with her estranged father Hank (Patrick Warburton) on his horse ranch in Wyoming. With her skateboard tightly in hand, and no ramps or cement in sight, Carrie feels completely alone and is determined to make it back to the city. While putting in her time at the ranch, Carrie makes an unlikely friendship with a wild horse named Flicka who is just as unhappy and alone as Carrie.

That's right. Flicka meets Caitlin's Way! Due out next year, you guys. I know you just can't wait.

Well, that was unexpected. And possibly not appreciated.

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
2002

I actually hadn't planned on viewing this movie (for the second time) until I was finished with my Supernatural marathon. However, because Netflix seemed to pick up on how much I like chronological order, I was given Spirit instead of Supernatural, Season 2, Disc 6, which is listed as "short wait." Damn you, Netflix. How dare you anticipate my needs!

Well, I have remedied this in my own way. However, I still had this stupid Spirit movie to deal with, and I had to go watch it again.

I honestly can't remember when I first saw this. Or with whom. Or where. Or when. This time, I made it through about forty-five minutes before deciding that the fast forward button was my friend (the last time I remembered I could fast forward through things that bored and/or horrified me was when I had to watch Caligula for academic purposes...and no, I'm not really comparing Spirit to Caligula because that would be insanely inappropriate). Because, really, who needs animated movies where the main animal characters can't speak proper English. Hell, if the Lakotas can speak perfect English, and Spirit manages it in voice over, the horses can figure it out also.

Obviously, I did forget that the horses do not actually speak in this movie. I kept expecting it to happen, because there are several instances where it totally would have helped. Like...when Spirit magically shouldered Rain onto his shoulders in the rapids. Or any time before or after that, really. Any time.

So, here are my points, as recorded in my notes when I wasn't busy fast forwarding:

• Clouds shaped like horses. Subtle!

• Bryan Adams. When I think of Bryan Adams, I think of Kevin Costner. It's unfortunate for Bryan Adams, but it's just a stigma that will never wash clean. Poor career move, Bryan Adams.

• I could be really anal about the weirdness that is Spirit's herd, but part of me really doesn't care. I could be annoyed that he appears to be born in the spring, only for it to magically become winter two seconds later. Then there is this sticky "Like my father before me..." narration that kicks in after minutes and minutes of Spirit never interacting with his father whatsoever to the point where I am convinced his dad died like months before he was born. And I could also point out that colts don't inherit herds from their sires...because that just isn't how it works. HOWEVER, I don't care. So.
  

• Spirit's herd snuggles as a group. It takes a village, people. It takes a village.

• That mare he shares grass with? She so wants him.

• The eyebrows!

• There is a lot of The Last Unicorn in this movie. Not to mention Lady and the Tramp and The Last of the Mohicans.

• I love random explosions. I'm not sure how a locomotive rolling down a hill into a camp could cause a firestorm of that magnitude, but whatever. I'll roll with it.

• And then they jump the Grand Canyon! And it is inspirational!

• The head nod of understanding between the colonel and Spirit was just a tad too much.

• Well, okay, the manly hug between Spirit and Little Creek surpassed the nod of understanding. I guess all of this makes sense because Spirit is a stallion, who is raging with testosterone, the main source behind nods of understanding and manly hugs? Maybe?

This is a good movie for kids, surely. For anyone who realizes horses don't have eyebrows, this will get tired quickly.

This is what happens when I let family members influence my television viewing habits.

Fury
1.1: Joey Finds a Friend

Befriended by Jim Newton, a recently widowed horse rancher, Joey and Fury become fast friends at the Broken Wheel Ranch, where, along with their pals Pee Wee and Pokey, all their adventures begin.

The other day I was talking to my mother about My Friend Flicka, which got her talking about Fury like it was the pinnacle of horsey television. For anyone looking at that DVD cover dubiously, your first instinct is correct. It is not the pinnacle of horsey television. It is a rip off of The Black Stallion, actually. But I'll get back to this in a minute.

I haven't been around in a while, and for that I apologize. I sort of got derailed with watching Supernatural to this scary obsessive degree (Jensen Ackles likes horses...think on giving me something to blog about over here, Jensen), and then I started up the editing of the manuscript again because it is so close to seeing the blissful light of day. Anyway. Don't worry, the blog is not in hiatus or will ever be forgotten. And eventually I'll post another book review. However, for right now I bring you Fury.

No, I am not going to go through this episode by episode. I wouldn't survive that. Fury started up in 1955 and ran to 1960. It is about a boy and the wild black horse who loves him. Apparently it is out in DVD to some extent, and you can buy it on Amazon if you just can't help yourself. For some reason my scary big library system has the first five episodes, of which I'm only reviewing this one, entitled Joey Finds a Friend. Well, the third episode is titled Joey's Dame Trouble, so I might watch that one for obvious reasons.

Fury starts out with Jim the rancher of what I keep wanting to call the Broken Spoke for reasons that have everything to do with my being from Austin, Texas. Anyway, Jim has his heart set on catching the wild black stallion that roams his property, and eventually captures him using a fancy trapping method called luring. With the stallion caught, Jim's evil ranch hand decides he's going to gentle that horse right the hell now, and he's going to do it by beating him with a stick!

This doesn't work out, again for obvious reasons. Shamed, the evil ranch hand is then immediately left alone because Jim has to go to the city for some vague reason, but not before another ranch hand can not so subtly inform Jim that the ranch really needs a washing machine (aka "a dame") to spiff things up around here a little. Jim is mortified! Why doesn't anyone understand that his wife died? Surely no other dame could ever clean his clothes as well as his dead wife. And then he flounces to the city, where he seems to be spending all his time staring at young boys instead of doing something productive.

Joey is the lucky kid who catches Jim's eye, because Joey is busy beating the living crap out of another kid on the sidewalk. Of course, this is expected because random fist fights are required in any visual media from this era. Joey appears to win the fight, but then the other boy picks up what looks to be a wrench and flings it at Joey's head. Oh, 1950's violence! I love you so much.

The wrench, or whatever, misses Joey by nearly a mile and smashes into a store window. Joey is immediately blamed for it and hauled to delinquent court, where Jim also happens to be. Jim is creeping me out right about now, especially when he manages to get the judge to just randomly hand Joey over to his care. Because that's a fantastic idea! Give the troubled orphan to this stranger who just walked in off the street. I would be shocked if this sort of thing wasn't a formula from this time period. Judges seemed to hand delinquents off to just about anyone back then.

While Jim is off in the city, the evil ranch hand manages to tack up Fury and ride him. This also doesn't go well. Shamed, the evil ranch hand has to face Jim, who berates him for about two seconds before he is immediately placated by the evil farm hand's innocent look. Joey knows better, of course, and tries to make friends with Fury by giving him an apple. The evil ranch hand picks this moment to walk into the arena with a whip. Because where a stick and bronc riding failed, a whip will surely succeed! He walks in the arena like he's Batman, picks up Joey and actually tosses him in the general direction of the fence, and then starts whipping Fury.

Fury isn't having this shit, people. He does what he did the two other times, and chases the evil ranch hand out of the arena, accidentally stomping on Joey's head as he goes. Somehow Fury escapes. Whatever. Jim later berates Joey for being a child and not telling the truth. Surely Joey is wrong and the evil ranch hand is right when he says Fury randomly attacked Joey. I mean, obviously.

And then they discuss how a dame would clearly be able to take care of Joey far better than they could. Hey, there is that school teacher lady who lives down the way! Surely she's just waiting to nurture something! And that's how Joey gets a surrogate mom.

Joey, however, is displeased and decides to walk home. To the city. And he runs into Fury, who appears to have a giant fungus growing on his leg. Or possibly was drawn on with chalk. Only this is called a cut, and I totally didn't get it. Jim finally realizes the error of his ways because the dame is totally cool with nurturing when Jim doesn't understand it at all. He fires the evil ranch hand, but in a cruel twist of fate the ranch hand finds Fury and decides he'd like to shoot him while Fury can't defend himself. So Jim has to launch himself off of his galloping horse and pummel the evil ranch hand with his fists. And all is well.

So that is two fights, one randomly evil antagonist, and one comparison of women to washing machines. It's high drama, and 100% inadvertently hilarious.

And I don't care what my mother says. My Friend Flicka is so much better than Fury.

Wildfire: Another tv show breaks my heart.

Wildfire
3.9 Heartless

I really did not think I was going to handle this episode, and I am proud to announce that I did not cry! I just teared up a little, kind of.

+ "It's not you, it's me." Mike tells Samantha it's over, and Samantha tags his shoddy excuse for what it is: he has a thing for Ashleigh. Nicely done, Samantha! I like her ability to move through this episode gracefully while at the same time making everyone uncomfortable. (+3)

+ Okay, I kind of squeaked happily when RJ appeared in the recap for this episode. And then I did exactly what Dani did upon seeing him in this episode...which was more squeaking and happy hand clapping. If I could have launched myself at him, I probably would have. I am not ashamed. (+10)

+ Points for all RJ scenes! (+5) Now I will double it just because I can! (+5)

+ Fresh from her making Mike feel like shit speech, Samantha moves on to Ashleigh and makes her feel like shit. All while still maintaining her "I am awesome, look how awesome I am" vibe. Oh, I really like you, Sammy. (+3)

+ The love conversation pops up a little out of nowhere with RJ and Dani, but I love it since Dani gets awkward because she's said these words to people like Mike, but clearly they didn't mean as much as when she'll say the same thing to RJ, and RJ is still so damn awesome. (+4)

+ It's the RJ and Brad Hug of Manliness! (+1)

+ I'm actually liking the Ian and Ashleigh scenes in this episode. It's like they actually had a relationship that the show bothered building and nurturing and showing us...somewhere along the way there. (+2)

+ Okay, I kind of teared up when Brad rode the same bull as RJ, and went longer than eight seconds out of respect for his friend. This, of course, is nowhere near my reaction to Dani's heartbreak after RJ, because she's killing me with her stoic, empty staring. (+8)

+ Ian becomes the Townsend Acres trainer. I respect this move, and sure it might make little sense (I'm sure he'll be "just an employee" there, too) but where else was he going to go? (+1)

Good: 42

- It's time for another "I don't know what I want!" moment from Ashleigh. Why am I not shocked at Mike is predictably shocked by this? (-1)

- Then Ashleigh pushes Mike away because she comes up with some convenient excuse about Whitebrook being important, and then she decides that yes, they should really go for it because she "wants him" and I can only really deduct one point because I was sort of distracted by OTHER MAJOR THINGS that made the Ashleigh/Mike Hook Up Of Doom less important. (-1)

- I cannot forgive this show for the RJ thing, and how the RJ thing was handled. I just can't and I won't. Of course, it's natural for a show in its third year to do something like randomly killing off the only good character who was breaking up the monotony of every episode, and for this I would deduct major points, but I just don't have it in me. Instead I am just going to make a note of my disgust here, and call it a day.

The Bad: 2

42 - 2 = 40

1. Fairy Tale Endings: 16
2. The Feud: 4
3. Moving On: 10
4. Close to Home: 42
5. Love vs. Work: 20
6. Kiss Kiss: 16
7. Push Me/Pull You: -20
8. The Goodbye: -3
9. Heartless: 40

Now, in the back of my mind, RJ is actually in a coma somewhere. He'll wake up after season four, reclaim his hat, and everything will be okay. It will! In the meantime, I'm going to go suffer through the rest of these Wildfire episodes where everyone is under the delusion that he is dead. Silly people. He's just in a coma!

The Medicine Hat Stallion, or Leif Garrett's pigtail phase.

Peter Lundy and the Medicine Hat Stallion
1977

I was never a huge fan of Marguerite Henry's books, so I haven't read San Domingo: The Medicine Hat Stallion and can't make any comparisons between the book and the movie, staring teen heartthrob Leif Garrett.

This movie had me for the first thirty minutes. It had a strange androgynous boy who is torn between varying hair styles, an alpha father figure who cannot show love, a mother who makes perfect wool shirts that look suspiciously machine made and store bought, and an Indian pony. What more do I want out of Westerns aimed primarily at children?

Well, they could have cut the singing. That would have been a helpful start. Once Peter falls off the house and breaks a few ribs (alpha father rolls his eyes), a kindly random singing person shows up with a hoard of various animals and serves as the father figure Peter's never going to get. And I totally tuned out. At some point, William Cody shows up and Peter gets involved in the Pony Express, and Domingo is traded for a Thoroughbred, and Peter puts the kiddie toys away, and his dad eventually gives him a shaving kit, and all is well!

That is pretty much what I took away from this movie. It was like Little House on the Prairie, to a certain extent. Just without the running through flowers and family bonding.

• At one point, Peter's father arrives home "two days early" and speaks in metaphor for an entire dinner conversation. Hey, Jethro, you could have just said plainly that you killed a man and took his horse because you've had this poisonous mindset bent on revenge. Peter's mom tries to make sense of this lunacy, but Peter just looks at his dad like he's totally lost it, which is exactly the case.

• Eventually, Peter's mom pulls him aside and tells him the story of why his father is adorably insane. Oh, what being mauled by a bear and left for dead by a stranger will do to a person.
  

• Peter's hair styles crack me up. At first, he's going for a ponytail and a headband, which I can live with. However, by the end of the movie he's decided to go with both a ponytail and pigtail braids. Do you know how hard it is to take a movie seriously when its main character is running around with a ponytail and pigtail braids?
  

Wildfire: bring on the sexy antagonism!

Wildfire
3.4: Close to Home

Oh, you guys. You guys. Season three just brought out its secret weapon -- the only thing that could possibly divert my attention from gagging at the possibility of Ashleigh/Mike. This is a necessary move on the show's part, because the more Ashleigh and Mike make eyes at each other, the more I want to weep a little inside.

The Good:

+ Brad's new bull riding friend from last episode, RJ Blake, accompanies Brad to Casa Townsend. RJ decides to make a sandwich, stumbling across Dani in the process. She assumes he's a hired hand and gives him a piece of her mind about why he's in the kitchen, handling her lunch meats. I am immediately intrigued! Brad wanders in to tell her to shut up, and she says, "So, you're in the rodeo." And RJ says, "Does that make me more or less offensive to you?" Staring commences. Ohmigod ohmigod, it's sexy antagonism! I am smitten! (+15)

+ So at the rodeo, Brad is beaten up because he's both a newbie and a rich kid. I have to give Brad two points (+2) for being remarkably cool about this.

+ It is apparent to just about everyone that this rodeo tangent is weird and out of nowhere, so thankfully we get a good supportive sibling talk between Dani and Brad concerning "being something more" or whatever. I'm just noting this because I like it when Dani and Brad lean on each other for support. (+2)

+ Dani decides to catch up on her friends, which have been no shows for at least a season and a half by now. Not shockingly, she discovers through these attempts that she has no friends. Oh, Dani. You're starting to make me like you again. (+1)

+ Dani: Don't you have a home?
RJ: I thought I'd bask in your warmth.
Me: *totally girlie squee*
Five points for banter! (+5)

+ Dani, you get a point (+1) for taking RJ's invitation to dance at the rodeo party as an opportunity to frustrate him by dancing with someone else instead. That gets my stamp of approval! RJ, you get two points (+2) for one upping Dani by finding two girls to dance with in response. Both of you are awesome, so you get another point (+1) just because I find you hilarious.

+ RJ gets five points (+5) for reminding me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with the line "We've been dancing since we met." Indeed you have been! This is probably why I instantly love you, and have been showering this episode with points.

+ Ashleigh and Jean finally have a good conversation that doesn't inadvertently piss me off because their misunderstandings are completely caused by the stupidity and impossibility of that whole Tor issue. And then they're mistaken as mother and daughter. And this is part of why I find Ashleigh/Mike so creepy. Um, plus one? (+1)

+ More Brad and Dani supportive sibling talk! You have to love the Townsends. They're far more interesting when they're getting along than when they're trying to beat each other down. (+4)

+ Brad gets to play the hero in this episode, saving RJ from goring. He wins the respect, love and adoration of all except for maybe Ashleigh. Sigh. (+2)

+ Um, the RJ/Dani relationship? I cannot get enough. RJ gets five points (+5) for tricking Dani into thinking he's seriously injured after his incident with the bull, Dani gets (+3) for believing him and then smacking him when she realizes he's kidding, RJ gets another point (+1) for being awesome and then there is kissing (+10). And there are random rodeo men laughing and commenting nearby! (+3) Thank you, show. Thank you.

+ Also, the actor who plays RJ gets a point (+1) for playing Rex on Days of our Lives and for actually being able to act. I didn't realize he was a Days of our Lives graduate until after watching this episode, and then I fondly remembered his first Days episode (as a naked possible alien who turned out to not be an alien, obviously, because he was a Brady or something). I can't believe I remember this.

Good: 63

The Bad:

- Stop using that stupid autumn shot of Casa Reese, show! (-1)

- Can I just say that I really don't like the western theme? It's rather sudden and annoying and if RJ wasn't involved I would really like it to go away. (-1)

- Ashleigh wants a new trailer, because hers burned down. Naturally Mike is entering this calf roping competition with his new Andalusian, who just happens to be "good at roping" or something insane. So who is going to be Mike's partner? Ashleigh! Does she know how to rope? Well...I'm sure she can figure it out in a week or so. (-3) And this has to involve Mike/Ashleigh touching. (-5) And Brad has to see it. (-1)

- Because Ashleigh is staying at Casa Reese for the duration, Mike has to be an idiot and barge into the bathroom because he just assumes he is barging in on Todd instead of Ashleigh, who is naked and hopping around and screaming. This made me feel a little sick. Ashleigh/Mike makes me physically ill. This is how awful it is. (-10)

The Bad: 21

63 - 21 = 42

1. Fairy Tale Endings: 16
2. The Feud: 4
3. Moving On: 10
4. Close to Home: 42

Finally, a Wildfire episode I've liked! It's been a long while, show. A long, long while.

If we only could have moved on to a more realistic future...

Wildfire
3.3: Moving On

I haven't a lot to say about this episode, which doesn't surprise me because the show is making some transitions here as it gets into the middle of the season. I guess you could say. Anyway. Points!

The Good:

+ Brad rides the mechanical bull consistently now, and he's good at it. I'm going to give him five (+5) points for this, because he's finally showing some talent that does not involve driving and paying bills. (Notice I can't say "having money" is a talent, because he tends to mismanage that privilege, and yeah, I'm giving him that driving thing.)

+ So how many points can I allot to the following scenario? Mechanical bull + Ashleigh + frustrated Brad + staring. I think there's supposed to be some sexiness here on Ashleigh's part, but true to form she downplays that. So I'll just have to award ten (+10) points for Ashleigh staring at Brad as he rides the bull. And it made me laugh.

+ Brad wants to ride bulls now, does he? Well, Brad, I've got to agree with Mike when he spends his two cents on being logical for this season and says something along the lines of YOU ARE CRAZY. You're crazy, Brad. CRAZY! But whatever. Your first task to bull riding master is being the rodeo clown, so that also made me laugh. +2!

+ Samantha gets three (+3) points for telling Dani that she will sell her share in Townsend Acres to anyone but her. I'm happy about this, because it's about time for someone to come along and kick Dani repeatedly in the shins. I like that she's really standing up for herself in front of her father, but she's been more than a little grating in her take no prisoners approach to life lately.

+ Predictably, Clay buys out Samantha's shares in the farm as an anonymous corporation. This is why Clay is awesome and gets four points (+4)!

+ Brad gets his 8 seconds. I'll award you a point (+1) for this, Brad. Just because you're smiling and you worked your butt off and you succeeded for once. Otherwise, I sort of agree with everyone else that this turn of plot is stupid and you need to be awesome somewhere else that does not involve cowboy hats and billowing fringed chaps.

The Good: 25

The Bad

- Jean and Ashleigh are having trust issues over Wonder not being 100% after coming back from being a stud failure. Ashleigh wants to push Wonder harder and enter a race to start immediately winning back the purse they didn't get. Jean wants to wait and mope, I guess. Ultimately, this lands on Jean's pissiness over the Tor issue, which I have to say suck it up! It's your fault Tor even had that much control over your farm, Jean. I'm not even sure how that even happened. Ugh. (-3)

- Dani is an idiot. Samantha will sell her shares to Dani if Flame will only be returned to Whitebrook, and Dani has the gumption to tell her Flame might win the Triple Crown and might be more profitable in the long run. I have news for her. She's wrong. (-1)

- You know how in Derby Fever, everyone at Whitebrook suddenly discovered that you can work horses in pairs after one horse has been kind of bad at working alone, but they call it something stupid like a match race? Wildfire does the same thing here. It makes me want to groan and scratch at my eyes. (-1)

- Also, you know how in On The Track, Melanie and Kevin randomly work horses together that they have no permission to work? Same thing here, only Mike and Ashleigh manage to pitt Wonder against a "green horse with no gate experience" in a work out of the gate. Fantastic planning, guys. Really, it's little wonder your horse isn't bouncing back as fast as you wanted! (-3)

- "Wonder doesn't need a jockey, she needs a trainer." No shit, Jean! What exactly is Ian doing, then? (-1)

- Blah blah, Ashleigh knows Wonder better than everyone, blah blah she can tell you all there is to know, blah blah they have a connection, blah blah stupid horse story trope, blah blah blah! (-5)

- There are lots of ill-timed inspirational talks in this episode. Seriously, I don't think we need a monologue right when Brad is getting on the bull. (-1)

The Bad: 15

25 - 15 = 10

So, to keep track:
1. Fairy Tale Endings: 16
2. The Feud: 4
3. Moving On: 10

Mostly, I'm just nonplussed at this point.

Um, coming up this week I've got books! Another Pine Hollow book, Maggie Estep's latest, and if I can get myself through the most dense romance novel from hell, I will post that one also. If not, I'll skim it and post a review anyway. Cheers!

A video game that would make Cindy proud.

Let's Ride: Corral Club

My next game will be Let's Ride: Corral Club. There is no way to describe how TERRIBLE, how much of an ABOMINATION this game is!

Description (from Amazon):
Let's Ride: Corral Club lets you own and care for the horse of your dreams! Select a horse, choose a riding outfit and prepare for rodeo events. See if you can make it to the National Championship! Celebrate your accomplishments by viewing your high scores, ribbons and pictures of you and your horse. Save your memories in the Scrapbook and share photos of you & your horse with friends

First off.... this game refused to install on Vista. The Installshield would start up, go through the "preparing installation" thing then just disappear. I tried everything I could think of -- copying installation files to the HDD, patching InstallShield, editing INI files, compatibility mode, etc, etc. In the end, I didn't get it *properly* installed -- I just copied the program files from the disc. It worked fine by launching the executable.

Next - every time I tried to Alt+Tab to paste a screenshot into Paint then switched back, it'd just show a white box. Had to kill the process to get rid of it. Found a program that would take my screenshots (it's called ScreenStamp!) but it left an annoying date on the image. That's the price I pay for reviewing annoying games.

First off, the main menu:
That horrible shade of pink is enough to almost tear my eyes out. And the flowers make me want to yank out my hair at the same time.

So you start a new game and get a horse. And the default name of the horse is "Rainbow." Cindy, I wasn't aware you became a game developer, but you need to try a little bit harder. 'Cause this game SUCKS.
So you groom your horse. But it's not really grooming. 'Cause you don't have to do it -- all it is is running a brush over his coat. It doesn't make him any cleaner or any dirtier. And you can also feed him apples and carrots and of course he'll never colic.

So you can take your horse out to ride. You can choose between practice, competition, or the pasture. So I picked practice. I have no idea what happened here, but somehow the character turned invisible (stupid buggy games making the screenshots not work. DAMMIT. And stupid runaway horse called Rainbow, 'cause Rainbow is a dumb name for a horse, you hear me??)

If you happen to make a really tight turn around a barrel, the character screams "YEE-HAW!" or "VERY IMPRESSIVE!" or something equally annoying in her voice which hurts my ears. And if you ride in the competitions and win, this sugary high pitched voice says something which I can't make out because it's so high pitched and sugary and LOUD.... Damn, maybe it'll help if I turn down the speakers just a LITTLE BIT....

The pasture? Well, I thought it was going to be galloping through lush flowers and butterfly farts or something like that. But no, you get this flat field and you have to try to "beat" the time spinning around the barrels. At first they're simple, but then they get harder and harder until you get impossibly timed patterns.

My favourite thing to do in the pasture is to go around the starting line and kick the barrels around.
Basically.... this game is for 5-year-olds. The worst horse game I've ever played. And I tend to be generous when reviewing games.

Video games, anyone?

Let's Ride Silver Buckle Stables I got an e-mail recently asking me what I thought of reviewing horse-related games, and I thought, "Great! There's no way I'm doing that!" So here we have our first excited volunteer. Everyone meet Aimee. She's our video game and whatnot guest reviewer until she feels like not doing it anymore. And with no further ado... Okay, let's start -- I'm a bit of a gamer. I play Sid Meier's Civilization, SimCity, Transport Tycoon Deluxe, and Railroad Tycoon. Mostly strategy or simulation games. But I also like horse games. I don't have a huge collection yet, but I'll do a few reviews of what I do have. First off -- Let's Ride! Silver Buckle Stables. This is one of my first horse games, so I may be a bit biased, but whatever. Description (from Amazon):

You're the owner of a new horse farm, Silver Buckle Stables! Choose your horse, pick out your riding outfits and even accessorize your horse with saddles, ribbons and more. The competitions are tough, but practice hard at the corral to perfect your riding technique and you'll make it to the Equestrian Center where you can show off your skills to win blue ribbons and buckles!

When you first start, you get to choose whether you're a girl or boy, then you get to customize your character. Then you get to choose your horse. One great thing about this game is that there are plenty of ways to customize it, unlike some other games where there's only about three or four different coats. The game is about Western riding and competitions -- and there's little irritation. When you're riding the horse, the character is holding the reins with both hands, as in English riding. There are lots of trails at first, but after a while it gets boring and makes you wish you could import your own maps. I will say now this game has pretty decent graphics for being a budget game. This is a pretty easy game. No plot, and if you want, you can just ride around the trails all day. Grooming and feeding is simplistic. A bit too simplistic, but at least you're not spending 5 minutes grooming after every ride (as some games make you do.) In the barn, you can also pick up treats -- when you feed them to your horse, their levels in the health meter (lower left hand corner) go up. Good idea to always carry a few. As you go through competitions and get "Silver Buckles", the horse's "hearts" increase. Which makes it "run" (huh?) faster and increases the effects of treats. As well, you get more customization options, and you get to pick out more horsies! Yay! In total you can have four horses. Once you're done all the competitions and exploring the trails and stuff, there's not much left to do. And it does get repetitive after a while. And if you like a challenge... this isn't for you. One last thought: It's fun to gallop through the streambeds trying to avoid the rocks!

Sometimes I think I should listen to my ten-year-old self more often.

Whisper Goodbye
by Dorothy Nafus Morrison
1985

I could not get into this book. I tried. I failed. I sort of predicted this. Way back when, I had a copy of the sequel to this book, Whisper Again, and I could never make myself care about it either. However, I do have a few bullet points for this book, because I did sort of skim through it in a bored, lackadaisical manner.

Katie is forced to make the most difficult decision of her life when her grandparents decide to move. Should she move with them or remain with the horse she loves more than anything else in the world?

Katie does not want to move away to Portland. She hates the idea of leaving her school, her friends--and especially her horse.

Katie has trained her horse since birth, and now she's ready to compete in the rodeo. But Katie has lived with her grandparents since her own parents died, and she knows how much they love and depend on her.

It takes a major disaster to help Katie make her difficult choice.

Naturally, I find this summary hilarious. The first two paragraphs are essentially the same paragraph, sort of indicating to me that the summary writer was as bored with this book as I was. Katie is moving! Katie is moving to Portland...did we mention that?

Let's see if I can break this down:

#1. Katie's town is being flooded and moved to make way for a reservoir.
#2. The generic version of Wal-Mart is moving in, threatening Katie's grandfather's pharmacy, thus Katie's grandfather decides to move to Portland.
#3. Katie freaks out.
#4. Katie feels back about freaking out. Then she breaks her foot.
#5. Katie tries to find a boarding stable in Portland, but fails.
#6. Something happens, and Katie realizes that family is more important than horses.
#7. Katie sells Whisper to this girl named Stacy.
#8. Katie gets into gymnastics and moves to Portland.

That's it! Mostly.

• I would have really liked this book if it had been at all interesting. The ending is pretty cool, considering most horse stories bend over backward to allow a perfect OMGYAY ending for the main character. You don't get that this time around. Katie just finally accepts that she can't bring Whisper with her and moves on without throwing a fit.

• Perfect grammar! Wow, no one talks like that. If someone else said the word "shall" I thought I was going to go mad.

• Katie has a friend who uses the word "utterly" every other page. That also drove me a little mad.

So it's not my kind of book. I still intend to try out the sequel, just to see if I can jog my memory and confirm if I ever attempted to read it.

Heartland: If Wildfire and Caitlin's Way had an illicit love affair in Canada...

Heartland
1.1 Coming Home

So I'm going to start watching this show. On Youtube, I guess, because Canadian television is all, I don't know, caring about who watches their programming for some reason. Look, Canada, I get that this is a Canadian show and all, but if and when you feel like publishing a tween book series about horses set in your own country, feel free to hoard the resulting tv show for Canadian eyes only.

Perhaps I'm being too hard on Canada. Or maybe it's just that I'm royally pissed off that this series gets a whole FREAKING TV SHOW and Thoroughbred didn't. Granted, Wildfire is basically a Thoroughbred fanfic, but that doesn't exactly count, now does it? So, I guess ultimately these entries will become giant rants about the unfairness of life and television. Hear me people that make these decisions: Thoroughbred tv show. You know you want to.

Okay, back to Heartland. I haven't read the books. I figure that I don't need to, given that Monique has laid down a solid primer and I really don't care. Let us watch the opening credits, because that's usually a good indicator of if a show is actually viewable.



So, damn it, I like the opening credits. They're actually way better than the opening sequence, which involves Amy and her mom stealing a horse from someone who is presumably abusing it, because they are morally superior to all other humans in the western half of the United States. Or Canada. Unfortunately for them the guy comes along and immediately shows some rage about the fact that this mother/daughter team has come along and decided that, you know, they'd really like his horse on grounds of their deciding he's an asshole. He rushes in and flips out entirely, deciding that the only appropriate response to this is to beat the horse more. Amy and her mom are shocked by his behavior, and the horse knocks him down. They tell him that they could call the cops, but they'll just take his horse and let him sit there on his ass and think about what a jerk he is, or something to that effect. They load up the horse and go, only to run off the road and into a tree.

There you have it. Horse and Amy survive, but mother dearest kicks the bucket. Amy's sister, Lou, is in a city that does not at all look like New York, and gets a phone call about the accident. She rushes home to be the pillar of strength that Amy can beat on angrily later, when she's feeling bitter and downcast about everything that life has thrown at her. When Amy gets home, looking pale but otherwise totally okay (her face was, you know, shoved into a windshield, so you'd think there would be some stitches, if not some serious bruising), she wanders around in a daze while the horse, a big black animal named Spartan, may or may not survive because he has been traumatized and the vet wants to put him down because of the trauma, I guess. It was one of those moments when a vet wants to put a horse down in a tv show, but has no realistic reason to, so they don't bother to state even a probable, yet fictitious, reason. I found this fascinating.

So Amy's grandpa says to keep the horse alive, and Amy continues to wander around and IM people as she holes herself up in her room. Lou learns that the bank is defaulting on their mortgage, and she goes to meet Steve, the crazy obvious Canadian banker, who so wants to go out with her that he does the natural thing and asks her out on a date if he can get the bank to approve whatever it is Lou is selling. Lou accepts.

Meanwhile, Ty has arrived, you guys, and according to Amy's friend Jen, he is hot. In a juvenile delinquent way. Because Amy's mom is an astonishing judge of character, she just happened to hire this guy before she died. I assume this will be explained later, because he has no experience, or clue. At all. Grandpa Fletcher tells him to stay the hell away from his daughters and then puts him to work.

Lou and Amy snip at each other in classic fashion, and Amy is forced to go back to school, where she suffers the advances of her boyfriend, Jesse, and the Classic Blond Antagonist Girl whose name I can't remember. Eventually they all go to a pool party, and this is where the plot probably deviates sharply from the book because there is underage drinking (from an American standpoint, anyway) and these kids couldn't possibly be older than 16. They can drive, so I guess I'll settle on that age. I could not tell what they were drinking, but I like to think they were drinking wine coolers. Just because.

So Jesse gets drunk and starts saying stupid stuff such as: "I drive really good when I'm drunk!" Oh, Jesse, you are so going to get beaten up. And he does, when Ty comes along and goes all Matt Ritter on Jesse's scrawny, drunk ass. At this point...right here...I wanted a Junior Davis to stand by looking bored by the stupid teenage shanigans, and there was no Junior Davis and I was UPSET about this. This show would benefit from the awesomeness of a Brad Townsend character, but that goes without saying.

Ty beats up Jesse and Amy has had enough of this stupidity, so she decides to walk home. Considering this is the middle of nowhere America, this is probably not wise because it's got to be a long walk. Ty finds her and apologizes and gives her a ride back, where they discover the rest of the farm hands doing Ty's work for him. Ty does not appreciate being found out like this, and when Grandpa fires him he has a melt down and Amy storms off after shouting at everyone and wow, teen angst. It is not as good as Wildfire. It's like a Thoroughbred book populated by drunk teenagers, actually. Hum. I would so watch that.

Yeah, well, during all of this Amy has discovered her gift of horse whispering and has whispered Spartan into being sane. In, like, a day. Go Amy. Lou finds out that the bank won't approve whatever she asked for unless she stays to implement her plan, so she has to stay at the ranch. Ty gets to stay because Grandpa Fletcher decides to be nice, I guess. And then Amy rides around on Spartan some more.

The Good:
This is a gorgeous show. Seriously, some of the scenery here is breathtaking. It reminds me a little of Wildfire in this aspect, because there were some scenes in that show's first season that really hit me as beautiful.

The Not So Good:
It's a general horse story. The formula is there, right down to the retraining a horse in a day thing. At least, it felt like a day. The way the shots were set up made it feel remarkably easy, when the dialogue kept trying to convince you that it wasn't.

The Appreciated, yet Hilarious:
The drinking. Okay, that wasn't expected because I had pegged this show to be majorly G rated, to the point of sugar shock. Yet all of a sudden there is this party scene where girls are running around in either bras or bikinis and everyone has red cups. The best part of this scene: when Ty threw his fists around. Not for the throwing of fists, but for the Classic Blond Antagonist Girl's gumption to actually tell him point blank that his hero routine blew up in his face. Nice work, show. Usually, no one bothers to point this out so directly. Ever.

Next up is After the Storm. I guess the first season borrows most of the book titles, but as you can see from IMDB, this stops rather obviously in season two with titles like "Divorce Horse" and "Showdown!" What, we couldn't think of some nice romantic titles? This is remarkably expected.

Phantom Stallion: Horse abuse is really not ok, ok?

Phantom Stallion 4: The Renegade
Terri Farley
HarperCollins 2003

The Synopsis

When an ambitious rodeo contractor comes to town, Sam worries. The woman wants to buy tamed mustangs from local ranchers, including Sam's dad, and doesn't seem to like taking no for an answer.
Then Sam spots the Phantom's herd- without him. She's sure he's been captured by the rodeo, but how will she find him? And even if she does, how can she set him free?

Oh lordy, the Phantom is in trouble again. It seems like everyone and their cat want this horse. But he's Sam's. You got that?

All in all, a fairly accurate summary, so not much else to be said here.

The Summary
The book opens with Rachel Slocum showing everyone what a spoiled little bitch she is by taking her father's horse, Champ, on a ride without telling anyone. Linc asks Sam and Jake to ride out and find her, which they do... on the floor and having a grand old tantrum. Sam gets all Jealous that Jake and Rachel get to share a saddle. Which is sort of cute, actually. I like how Terri touches on Sam's crush on Jake in this series. They have the classic love-hate relationship going on, which warms the cockles of my heart.

Linc Slocum makes mention about a rodeo contractor, Karla Starr, who is going to be buying some stock for her show from him, and she wants him to throw in a pale mustang to sweeten the deal. Oh, dear. What horse could this be, I wonder?

The next day, Rachel decides to try and coax Sam into teaching her to really ride, while not being upfront about the reasons behind this. Something about the "Best in the West" blah blah blah. She drops hints that the drought might be causing financial trouble for Sam's family and it would be in her best interests to cooperate.

Later Sam and her BBF, Jen Kenworthy, are out riding and find the golden fringe from a show jacket in the middle of the flats. Odd, no? Could Rachel and Karla Starr be connected somehow?

The Phantom almost gets hit by the school bus and Sam gets into big shit for saving him and risking her own life. She gets banned from riding the bus for two weeks, which is no biggie, as well as being confined to the ranch after school. Clever Sam cons Rachel into getting her driver to give both herself and Jen a lift as part of the riding lesson deal.

So, it turns out that Miss Perfect wants to win a Rodeo Queen competition so she can show her English brother, Ryan, that she's a real American cowgirl. So she also enlists Sam's help with finding the perfect horse for her. Joy. You can clearly see who our antagonist is in this series, yes?

Ace, Sam's little mustang gelding, has been escaping from his paddock and Sam begs to take him for a gallop. She and Jake go and we are treated to Sam's thirteen-year old mind's inner workings as she observes Jake ride Teddy. But, a storm breaks, releasing them of the drought, but causing the ground to go slippery. Teddy slips and falls and Jake breaks his leg. But he's all manly about the pain, so Sam is even more in awe of his awesomeness.

So, Jake is bedridden and Sam visits him on his birthday and gives him this bridle she bought him and some info she printed out on Native American trackers that she thought he'd be interested in. I have to say at this point that I really do like how their relationship is written. Terri really has a knack for characterization.

Sam's dad, Brynna and Gran go off to some fair to compete and Sam sneaks out to check and see if the Phantom is still with his herd. He is not and Sam ends up caught in a flash flood trying to save some stupid heifers who think drowning is the way to go.

Dallas, the wise and aged foreman, takes Sam to some local rodeos to look for him and then decided that the best event for him would be the wild horse race. But, no such luck.

Eventually, Brynna gets involved, being a BLM staff member, and they find the Phantom at some rodeo with some stock of Linc's and the shady Karla Starr.

He is released back into the wild and all is well.

Just a side note here, it is very clear that there is romance between Wyatt, Sam's dad, and Brynna. And Sam is not all that thrilled about it.

I like this series. There are some awesome lines and description that far surpasses any other horse series in the YA lit section. Plus, I like Sam. She's not little miss perfect all the time and makes some real human mistakes. And not everything is handed to her on a silver platter. Plus, we are constantly shown that she does not know everything there is to know about riding.

So, yeah. Not a bad book in the series, all in all. But it does get better as Terri settles into things and feels less need to explain the setting and characters.

The #1 way to get a horse: cry and insult your loved ones.

Moon Shadow
by Chris Platt
Published: 2006

While reading this book, I pondered on what would happen if all of these horse story main characters somehow found themselves locked in, say, a giant, isolated warehouse somewhere. You know what would happen? It would be a blood bath. That's what would happen.

Thirteen-year-old Callie lives with her parents on the edge of the Nevada desert. More than anything, she wants a horse of her own, but knows that her family could never afford it. For a long time Callie has watched a herd of wild mustangs -- sometimes playing, sometimes battling, but always magnificent. The stallion she calls Cloud Dancer and his pregnant palomino mare Moonbeam are her favorites. Callie daydreams that the beautiful Moonbeam will someday -- somehow -- be hers.

But not everyone loves the wild horses. Area ranchers complain that the herds are overpopulated, and in one of the Bureau of Land Management's periodic roundups, Moonbeam is brought in. When the mare dies after giving birth prematurely, Callie devotes herself to caring for Moon Shadow, the orphaned filly. It's touch-and-go as to whether the little mustang will even survive. But if by some miracle Moon Shadow does make it, will Callie be able to adopt the beloved foal?

I am glad to see that Chris Platt escaped the Ashleigh series with her career still intact, considering that it looks like, for some authors, the Thoroughbred series took them down with it. In an unexpected move, Chris Platt bounced from horse racing and breeding to flinging her formulaic rage at the BLM. I feel like this is a stage for some authors. It's only a matter of time before a horse story author moves from racing or horse camp scenarios to focusing their adorable little indignant characters on ripping into the moral fibers of BLM employees who don't appear to give much of a crap, but do invariably lose to the willpower of a tween and her gaggle of influential friends who keep the story moving for her, because she is ultimately powerless.

Callie is one of those adorable, indignant tweens. She's thirteen, horse crazy, and forced to wear homemade clothing because her parents are overgrown hippies who grow their own organic food and appear to live in a junk yard. Callie is upset about this because she does not like tie-dye, and incense makes her a little nauseous. She bravely soldiers on, making due with the family's draft horse and longing for the day she can adopt Moonbeam, her favorite local mustang.

It's summer, and Callie is serving as an equine vet assistant who does plenty of rounds at the local BLM. While they're there, Callie meets two new cowboys, Sam and his son, Justin. If you're waiting for me to say that romantic sparks start to fly between Callie and Justin, I'm sorry to inform you that this doesn't exactly happen. Because another local boy, and rich kid, Luke, likes to pester her in typical displays of male youthfulness, Callie decides that she'd really like to treat Justin like a foreign creature. Because typical tween maleness is seen as unsatisfactory in this book, let it be known that Luke is the antagonist. It's just not really convincing because mainly it's just Luke acting like a boy and Callie completely overreacting to everything he does. Sort of like Christina overreacting to Brad. That sort of overreacting.

So...Moonbeam is driven into the BLM compound and, because the BLM is evil, she is in labor and gives birth prematurely and wins up being put down because the BLM is evil. Did I mention that the BLM is evil? Have I mentioned yet that the "boss man" at the BLM does not like orphan foals? No? Well, he doesn't. And he has pig eyes and is unintelligent. No kidding. So, moving on, Callie has a hissy fit in the middle of the BLM about Moonbeam and immediately names her filly Moon Shadow. Because Callie can't just move into the BLM complex, she is forced to go home. When she comes back, she finds Justin helping out with the filly and has an immediate jealous urge to whine to herself about how she wants the filly to interact with only her. She has to note to herself that people call Moon Shadow her filly, not anyone else's filly, or the government's filly, or whatever. It's HER filly, people. Despite it not being her filly at all. Sam and Justin try to get the filly to bond with a nurse mare, but that doesn't work, so she takes to formula. By this point, Callie is determined to adopt Moon Shadow for herself, because boss man whoever is giving the filly the evil eye.

At this point, Luke's old pony gets loose, so Callie leads it back to Luke's farm and meets Luke's dad, who is very Clay Townsend. He's all ridiculously eager to be nice and happy to help after Callie pours out her emotional vomit about Moon Shadow. He is going to a) give her a job, b) front her the adoption fee, c) transport the filly to her house, d) tell her fantastical stories of the history of mustangs for some reason, despite everyone all ready knowing about the history of mustangs. Callie makes some callous comment about how Luke would never sit and listen to this crap, and it's no wonder, really, because it would bore anyone out of their mind. Only a horse story main character would listen to this. Anyway, Callie practically floats back home to tell her parents her plan, but they are not immediately swayed by its awsomeness and Callie flips out completely, shrieking about how she hates tie-dye and living on a yard with junk in it. Then she realizes that she's a bitch and it's too much. She bursts into tears and, probably because her parents are horrified that she's going to get into their medicine cabinet or start burning herself with their incense sticks, they immediately fall into line and let her adopt the filly.

Callie finds herself at the BLM place soon after her diabolical fit, toting Luke's father's check and the signed paperwork...only to find that the BLM boss guy has somehow figured out her plans and decided to swiftly cut her off at the pass, letting this random city woman (who is unfit to own a horse because she wears spike heels) adopt Moon Shadow. The horror! Clearly the BLM exists solely to piss off tween girls. Callie is paralysed into staring in abject terror at this development, so Sam and Justin do all the legwork and get city lady interested in another mare and foal so city lady changes her mind and, oh bliss!, Callie gets to keep Moon Shadow.

After this, Callie starts to work at Luke's place, trains Moon Shadow to lead, somehow accidentally lets Luke unlock the filly's stall, loses the filly for about two pages, and then decides to enter a halter competition with Moon Shadow when Luke's dad comes to the rescue again and offers her a new halter and all of his daughter's old clothes. At the show, Luke gets instantly pissed off because by this point he's probably realized he's the antagonist and he's not going to win at anything in his life ever again. So he decides, you know, screw it, and goes for the only option available to him: he lets Moon Shadow loose on the grounds. Callie and Luke's sister, Jill, find the filly, clean her up within about five seconds, and then release them into the show ring.

By this point, you're just waiting for me to say that she comes in first in her halter class, right? Well, she doesn't. She comes in fifth. Luke, of course, doesn't place at all, so that's really the most important thing. Sure, the book tries to indicate something about how it's all about the horse and the girl going on to become a fantastic team or something, but you know it's all about the tween girl beating her antagonist and affording to be smug about it later.

It's not a horrible book, but it strictly follows the wild horse/western formula. It also throws in some main character angsting about how everyone thinks pedigreed horses are better than mustangs and how wrong everyone is for having this mindset. And I can't exactly figure out why Sam and Justin like Callie when she mainly spends her time treating Justin like crap, just because he happens to be a boy, which Luke also is. Also, notice how she doesn't exactly do much of anything that moves the plot forward except go into hysterics, which lands her a horse her family can't afford. The big saving grace here is that she comes in fifth, and is happy in fifth. She could have come in first, and made the cliché complete. The bottom line: solid, despite the converging of formulas.

It's amazing what allowances I'll give a book that doesn't reward its character with a justified blue ribbon in the end.