New Ebook Series: The Doubletree Kids

A few weeks ago I fell into a book called The It Girl by whoever the ghost writer is behind Gossip Girl. I picked it up because it had the two magic words in the summary: horse country. Unfortunately it was not a Gossip Girl scenario inside a horsey plot. It was just a product placement machine wrapped up in shitty attitude and the questionable morals of the elite teenager. However, ever since that epic failure I have been yearning for something along the lines of Gossip Girl meets Thoroughbred. (I don't know why, okay? Please don't question my weird needs.) Of course now I think I have found it. The series that combines the evils of wealthy adolescence with a seriously horsey background.

In my ongoing quest to find every new horse series I can, I bring you the series I am most awed by (currently). I give you The Doubletree Kids.

Becky Edwards wants to become a horse trainer more than anything else in the world. She moves to Del Mar and goes to the Doubletree ranch, looking for any kind of work that will include horses. She is befriended by Melanie Young, team leader and their trainer, Karen Evans and before long she's working with Karen. That doesn't sit well with all the team members and a whispering campaign begins.

Suspicious tongues start to wag when a valuable figurine belonging to Billy Martin comes up missing and fingers point to the newcomer. Although exonerated, Becky feels betrayed, and knowing she'll never really be a team member, she starts to pull away from Karen and the team.

A lucky twist of fate brings Becky to the barn early one morning and she finds Shievon Mahoney's mare, Megan cast in her stall. A combination of quick thinking and luck allows Becky to pull the little mare off the wall, thus making her a hero to the team and winning Shievon's undying allegiance.

That's just the beginning of her adventures along the road to fulfilling her dreams.

If that doesn't sell you, the second book involves pirates.

Unfortunately, these are ebooks, and I generally only read books I get for free. Well, that's my current rule. So, I will just have to live without Becky's poor-turned-amazing horsey pirate adventure/murder mystery.

Wildfire: In which Kris whores herself out for a horse.

Wildfire
1.6: The Claiming Race

From the title of this episode, we can deduce that the claiming race is still on. Everyone is forlorn about this, leaving Jean as the only one willing to stay the course, as it were.

Meanwhile, Bobby finds Dani and Amber at the hamburger place, where he manages to wheedle back into her life fairly easily by being super confident. Dani remarks that this is twisted, but is too turned on to care. Soon we are whisked away back to Raintree, where we are treated to a spruced up version of Matt. The boy has cut his hair, and I find this a tremendous improvement. Whatever he was doing before just didn't work for me. So he's off messing around with hay bales and complaining that his mom keeps making him do errands (his hair cut does not improve his stupidity). Kris is having to deal with seeing Wildfire's jockey take over her position as exercise rider in the days before the race, and she's being a mope about it as usual. Cue Cindy antics, just to a lesser degree. Wildfire doesn't get along with the jockey at first and we've heard it all before. It takes TIME, people. All horses are ONE PERSON horses in fantasy tv/book land. Or so it seems. Then Matt rushes his new hair cut over to Kris's to inform her that Wildfire has been claimed despite it not being race day. No one knows the farm that put in the claim, so they're all particularly befuddled.

Enter Junior to save the day. Actually, scratch that. Kris demands that Junior put a claim on Wildfire also, to ensure that the horse has a chance to go to a good home (because all other homes are possibly abusive, as all other homes are in tv/book land, as we well know by now). Junior takes this opportunity to convince Kris to whore herself out for her horse, which she does with remarkably little problem. I mean, sure, she sighs and huffs and acts like this is a big deal, but she jumps on the opportunity. Junior's all "friends with benefits!" and Kris sighs and makes the date. Meanwhile, Amber has made the astonishing discovery that Bobby is married and storms off in a huff...to Matt's room? She invites him to some club, where Junior and Kris inevitably show up. Everyone dances awkwardly. There is no excuse for what everyone at this club is doing, but it seems to be some strange shuffle motion with minimal hand movements. It was just sad, is what it was. Matt and Junior were by far the worst. Actually, Matt was the epitome of worst.

Insert some Jean/Charlie off screen sex. Also, Dani throws a vodka tonic or something at Bobby and Matt threatens to throw his fists around again. BIG sigh.

Then Junior and Kris go back to his house and sit on his bed and start to make out. Kris makes it known she is not into this, and Junior doesn't seem to outwardly care. Then we skip to morning while I would be thinking "date rape!" only I've seen that scene before so I know he has some touching "I pretended to fall asleep because you're not that into me right now, but oh, you will be" thing to say. Back at Charlie's pathetic bachelor pad, Jean gets all offended that Charlie paid for her feed bill. The audacity! How dare he be wealthy and try to help her! She predictably storms home.

Somewhere in here we have a scene between Dani and Matt that I actually liked. She was cute and totally deserves more than Matt. Matt, being stupid, decides instead to get all frustrated with Junior because he, like, took Kris out. Oh my God! Junior's all, "dude, deal with it." And they have that "oh, I see how it is" moment and decide that it's back to the wooing Kris competition.

So we lead up to the claiming race, were Wildfire wins by five lengths. They do the draw at the end of the race and discover that Pablo is the farm that put the claim on Wildfire. Everyone is suitably shocked, and so am I considering Pablo pulled a shitty move with Jean earlier when he said he was going to leave Raintree if Wildfire left. Like...dude, you put the claim on him. Shut up and stop being so self-righteous. So they take Wildfire back to Raintree and Jean sorts out a 50/50 arrangement with Pablo. The end.

• Pablo insists that if Wildfire wins his claiming race he'll be in a "whole different class." I have to wonder what sort of "class" this could be.

• You don't discover if a horse you're running has been claimed until after the race is run. More to the point, no one can enter a claim on a horse until race day. This seems obvious, but the people at Wildfire didn't seem to catch the reasons for these rules.

• Why is Matt reading Pride & Prejudice alone in his room?

• Jean has Matt instruct Charlie in his first horseback riding lesson, and Matt is predictably a huge douche about it. This leads to Charlie falling off the horse, and I pretty much lost all respect for Matt here because that just wasn't cool.
  

• Jean always appears to be randomly preparing food at odd hours of the day. I can't decide if this is sexist or if the show really doesn't know what to do with her.

• Wildfire's stride is the longest Pablo's seen since War Admiral. This would hold some water if Pablo was, like, eighty.

• Big Thoroughbred moment akin to On The Track. Pablo leads Wildfire to the gate before the race.
  

• In this episode, Raintree's silks change from solid red to white and purple and back to solid red. I imagine this will be changing constantly in every race scene. Also, apparently this was a mile and a quarter race and the time was 1:55. Jean's thrilled because this is a "track" record, but in actuality this would be a new world record. The real record is Spectacular Bid in 1:57 4/5 (on dirt).

While watching this episode, I decided it would be more amusing for me to supplement everyone's names for Thoroughbred equivalents. Who thinks these posts would be 100% better if I did this for these reviews?

Just a note: the IRS doesn't care if you're a Red Sox fan.

Wildfire
1.5: Guilty

This episode I wasn't too fond of, probably because it mostly revolves around Matt being stupid. This in itself is not shocking, so let's just get down to business.

Wildfire sucks, you guys. Kris keeps riding him and he continues to suck, so their attempt to get him to not suck is apparently breezing him every day. Because running a horse into the ground is the best solution!

Well, anyway, this episode opens up with one attempt to get Wildfire to wake the hell up and act like a bunch of police horses and a helicopter are tearing after him akin to that one time in the pilot, when he experienced some brief flash of speed. They decide to breeze him with Oklahoma Crude, the farm's most awesome horse. Seeing as how Oklahoma Crude lost pretty pathetically in the only race we've seen him in, this does not bode well for Raintree. Seeing as how I'm still fairly convinced Kris has little to no experience, Wildfire cuts across the track and completely blindsides Crude, who goes and breaks his leg. They haul Crude back to the barn, where I suppose a vet randomly decides he has a condylar fracture. (I say "randomly" because Raintree sure has hell doesn't look like it has an on site equine hospital, and given that Pablo is still trying to wrap his brain around exercising a horse in a pool, I consider this a solid assumption. Plus, Crude didn't exactly go anywhere but back to his stall.) So Pablo gives Jean the diagnosis and she's all "I don't have $9,000" because his explanation is along the lines of "we need money to slap a few screws in his leg and then he can race again, maybe." Yeah, if Crude races again I will (probably not be) shocked.

Jean is apprehensive about all of this, and decides that since Wildfire sucks she might have to sell him to save the better racehorse. This really doesn't go anywhere until the end, so we'll just skip forward to witness Matt being stupid some more. That boy...it's almost heartbreaking, his stupidity. Anyway, he's being harassed by Bobby the bookie because Matt has predictably done something stupid. He has bet on a game, and he lost, and he doesn't have the hundreds of dollars he owes. So Charlie, some rich video game designer guy who boards at Raintree and has some designs on Jean (which will probably go no where because that would mean Jean sold out and married a rich guy to save herself) takes Matt out to some bar to watch horse races. Here they discuss how fathers suck. Charlie's ran away, Matt's is somewhere doing something, I guess. Then Charlie has to go tell him some super secret method of success when gambling on two year old race horses. You take the time of some furlong plus the time of some other furlong in their first two races and blah blah blah Matt is in awe, of course, because he's stupid. Good going, Charlie.

So meanwhile, Kris starts looking for a job to help out. She winds up working as a waitress at the burger place everyone frequents. The burger place is continuing to confuse me, because it seems to be going for burger place/high class restaurant...I do not understand this, but whatever. So the owner gives Kris a tiny t-shirt to wear, and Kris is predictably unenthusiastic about this. So she starts working late nights and is groggy in the mornings, which, of course, screws up Wildfire's already sucky times. At this point they're breezing him every morning, so you'd think they'd both be exhausted, but no. This thought does not enter Pablo's head at all.

We've also got some other plots going on with Dani, who is experiencing the worst birthday ever. Her dad is not being as upstanding as usual, dropping her in order to presumably screw a flight attendant. Dani is not happy, and so she shows up at the burger place while Kris is working and dealing with a table of annoying manly men. Junior and Matt also show up to save Kris from the manly men. Junior, who is fast becoming the most awesome character on the show (look, he's not Brad, but I can't expect that sort of awesomeness in everything, okay?), uses his verbal wit to give everyone pause while Matt prefers to throw his fists around and act confused. Matt...is so damned stupid. Then Dani saunters in and all hell breaks loose for the rest of the night, ending in Bobby physically assaulting Dani, Kris assaulting Bobby, Dani threatening Bobby, Bobby threatening Kris because in the middle of all this fighting his BMW apparently experienced some tiny amount of damage. Kris gets fired and Dani is all "we are not friends because we stuck up for each other, bitch."

Anyway, eventually everyone discovers that Wildfire doesn't suck. He's just too smart, of course. So Pablo blasts crowd noise over the training oval and Wildfire acts like a racehorse they can all pin their hopes on. But the damage has been done, the IRS is auditing the farm and they owe $80,000 in back taxes. Matt is all, "damn, mom, don't you have a brain?" and Jean isn't taking any of that, so they have a real conversation for the first time in forever and Matt suddenly decides to act like an adult and cancel his next bet with Bobby, despite Charlie's fool proof betting technique or whatever that was. Then Charlie and Jean start to make out.

So Kris and Matt have some weird heart to heart about how he's probably going to be a gambling addict later in life, if he isn't already (okay, they didn't exactly have that conversation, but it was about how she accidentally saw him with Bobby doing their gambling thing and she pretty much says that if he's not trying to stab his mom, she's not shocked by his behavior). Then Matt somehow discovered the time to become a musician in the middle of all of this, and let's Kris listen to some "cool" music he came up with...I don't even know.

ALSO, I have to include the part where Todd and his grandfather internet stalk the IRS agent in order to find a weakness they can use to their advantage. This leads to an adventure with Ebay and way too much Red Sox talk for my liking. So when they meet the IRS agent, grandpa whatever his name is wears a Red Sox hat and sweet talks the lady by badmouthing the Yankees. Yeah, seriously. This really does no good, as they still owe the government eighty grand. Yeah, that's right. Liking the Red Sox will not actually get you off the hook with the IRS. Who knew?

We end the episode with Jean randomly telling Kris that she's entered Wildfire in a claiming race, as their situation is so dire and I guess if the claim tag is right Wildfire could not only rake in the purse but take care of their $20,000 back taxes payment plan for that year. Kris throws a temper tantrum worthy of our beloved Thoroughbred characters, but Jean cannot be swayed! Next up: The Claiming Race.

So, it took a lot for me to sit through this episode. This might be because I'm still not connecting with Matt's character, and he is just so adorably annoying. Or it might be because I used Wildfire as a distraction from staring at Friday Night Lights until well into the early hours of morning again. Yes, it took a lot for me to not rip that Wildfire dvd out of the player and replace it with Friday Night Lights, but I damn well did it. And I typed this. And I am totally not obsessing. Totally not.

Okay, that's all.

Saddle Club: In which I suffer the return of Deborah

Saddle Club S.1.12 “Jumping to Conclusions”

This episode starts off with Veronica bitching over Max assigning Prancer to Lisa while she gets reassigned to Patch. My personal opinion is that Patch is adorable. Veronica does not share my opinion. As she dismounts in a temper tantrum, Patch starts walking, landing Veronica on her butt. The Saddle Club snickers and Veronica says Lisa isn’t good enough to ride Prancer.

Later, the girls are still making fun of Veronica up by the quarry. Phil tries to justify her behavior by saying she’s probably still upset about Cobalt. This pisses Stevie off.

Veronica is curling her eyelashes (God, why do people do that?) and bitching to Kristi about Prancer. In walks a member of Red’s band, Jake, who is apparently hot. Once again, I really don’t see the hotness. Kristi and Veronica fall for him. Jake’s unhappy that Red spends more time working than practicing. After all, Jake’s made sacrifices. He skips school and everything all for the band. Loser.

Red asks Max for Saturday off, but Max says no. Then Deb shows up. Blech. She and Max are all awkward smiling. It makes me sick. Max tells Red if he can find someone to work part time, he can have Saturday off. Then he and Deb are smiley some more. Whoo.

Kristi attempts to flirt with Jake. Veronica comes in and breaks it up, dragging Kristi out. Phil witness all this and thinks Jake is some girl attracting god, so he asks for some advice for asking Stevie out. Jake’s brilliant suggestion? Hey, tell her she looks good, because all girls love complements. Awesome.

Lisa goes to tack up Prancer, but finds her acting strange. Max agrees that she’s not quite herself, but thinks she’ll settle down. During the lesson, she acts skittish and refuses a jump. True to her character, Veronica snarks that a horse is only as good as its rider. Max tells her not to ride her on the trails to cool her out, and that he’ll have Red check her feed.

Stevie borrowed her brother’s shirt without asking, says he’ll never notice, and then promptly spills soda on it. I laughed. So did Carole. Phil comes in and, not noticing the soda stain, complements Stevie’s shirt. Epic fail. Stevie gets mad because she thinks he’s making fun of her.

Lisa is worried about Prancer, but Max thinks she’s just having an off day. Veronica comes up and says Prancer’s slacking off because of her novice rider. Max retorts that he doesn’t consider Lisa to be a novice anymore. Lisa doubts herself and tells Max that maybe Veronica should ride Prancer. Max doesn’t want Lisa to lose me confidence, but agrees to let Veronica ride Prancer for one day.

Veronica continues being a bitch and Lisa insists that Prancer is not well. Phil tries to complement Stevie again and fails again. Red comes in and says Prancer’s feed is fine. Veronica acts bitchy some more. Red then tells them that all the horses have strict feeding routines, and that no one is to feed the horses anything extra. He tells the girls about a horse that would turn into a steeplechaser every time he was fed extra oats. It’s news to me that oats will make a horse hot (that is, high spirited) but this story puts a scheme in Veronica’s head.

Red tries to get Jake to take the part time job so he can get more time off and they can get in some rehearsal time. Jake’s not interested in horses. Red gives him a hard time about Kristi and Veronica, saying they’re too young for him. Jake acts like a jerk, going “I can’t help it if they dig me.” Loser. He then steps in horse poo and gets all huffy.

Veronica sneaks some oats to Prancer as Jake tells Phil to “play it cool.” As in, ignore Stevie all together. Brilliant.

The next day, Prancer does well for Veronica. Despite getting exactly what she wanted, she still has to be a bitch, saying “You either have it or you don’t, right Lisa?” Lisa looks sad.

Veronica goes further, telling Lisa that since Prancer means so much to her, she can cool her out. That’s the only way she’ll ever get to ride her. Lisa agrees to do it saying they can ride her up to the quarry. Carole tells Stevie to invite Phil. After some protesting, she does, but Phil ignores her. Stevie leaves all annoyed and Phil looks confused.

Stevie and Carole determine that Veronica is doing something to make Prancer act so strange. They head back to find some evidence while Lisa stays out with Prancer.

Stevie and Carole start going through Veronica’s bag, where they are predictably caught by Max.

Phil finds Lisa and asks where the others are. Lisa teases him about Stevie, but tells him she likes him back. She tells him that Stevie hates to be ignored, and when he doesn’t respond she says she doesn’t either. Suddenly Phil says the plant Prancer is eating is oleander, which is poisonous.

As Max brings Stevie and Carole to apologize to Veronica, they catch her putting extra oats in Prancer’s feed bag. Max is thoroughly ticked, suspends her from lessons, and tells her, if she’s lucky, she’ll get to ride Patch again. Lisa and Phil come in with the news that Prancer’s been poisoned.

Dr. Judy tells them that Prancer didn’t eat very much, so she should be alright in 24 hours. After Lisa’s first lesson on Prancer, they rode up to the quarry, where Prancer got into the oleander. The next day, Prancer was sick, so they didn’t go up to the quarry. Later Veronica gave her the oats, so by the next lesson she was back to normal. Stevie gives Phil a big hug, which makes him all love dizzy.

Jake runs into Deb, which makes him act like a goober. Max comes up and says Jake will be working for them part time. Jake, in awe of Deb, stupidly parrots his consent.

Elsewhere, Kristi and Veronica are arguing over Jake. They agree to let Jake decide, but when they go to find him they discover him talking to/ trying to flirt with Deb. They are both disgusted because she is far too old for him, and he must be so desperate. Kristi turns her attention back to Red, and Veronica just looks exasperated.

In a lesson later on, Lisa and Prancer are getting along much better. Veronica is again on Patch. Poor Patch.

This is the best Prancer centered episode thus far. That’s not to say the episode was great. Veronica’s over the top bitchiness annoyed me more than usual. Therefore, the episode gets a B.

I do have to say Prancer and Lisa have really become my favorite horse/rider team. They are both imperfect, and have both undergone real character growth. A big part of this show is the merchandising, and I have somewhat fallen into the trap. The Breyer Prancer model has come to live on my desk at work, and despite myself, I may have to get the rest of the Saddle Club set.

Wildfire: I don't have a snappy title for this one.

Wildfire
1.4: Mothers

Okay, so my love for this show is starting to grow and flourish, quite unexpectedly. In this episode, we've got parallels being drawn between Matt's mom, Jean, and Kris's mother, the less responsible Barb, who does not look like she could at all give birth to someone who looks like Kris. But that's besides the point. The issue is Jean and Barb, and the episode mostly revolves around them.

So. Wildfire is gate training. This is all fine and dandy until Kris's mom shows up and announces that she's petitioned the parole board to let Kris come back to live with her. Apparently all she needs is a written consent from Jean to allow all of this to happen. Meanwhile, Jean is collecting everything that might have some worth in the house, preparing the best garage sale ever. Her engagement ring is among the items listed to be sold, and when Matt finds out about this he gets all uppity about how these things are "the family history!" And Jean gets upset about decisions she has to make and it's not like she's spring cleaning here.

Barb moves into Kris's trailer, completely upsetting the balance of everything. Barb has been sober for six whole months, and is determined to bring Kris home with her so she can stay clean. Kris is sure to help her! Or so she keeps insisting. Kris is right to point out that her mother is being selfish, and is also right to not trust her at all. Then you have Jean over there, who has dealt with her addict ex-husband. Jean is concerned about Kris having to manage her mother, because having had to manage her husband's problems.

So while Barb is trying to reel Kris back into her motherly grip by using every passive aggressive tactic in the book, Jean's engagement ring goes missing. Immediately Kris thinks her mom stole the ring, which is a good guess. The ring stays missing for a while, all the time Kris is accusing her mother of stealing it. Her mom is all "blah blah you may have stolen it blah" because somewhere in the course of all of this she fell off the wagon again. Kris sets her back up in her trailer and (probably) finds herself back in the role of keeper. When her mother finally passes out she ransacks the place and finds the pills hidden in a stick of deodorant. Ah, addicts. They are so creative.

Meanwhile, Matt and Junior have decided to call a truce on Kris and meet up with their bookie, who is having a party at his house. Once there, they are astonished by a woman who can tie a cherry stem in a knot with her tongue. Things might have gotten interesting from here, but then Dani and Amber have to show up, disgusting Matt and Junior, who leave immediately. You see, Dani is still on the outs because of her drag racing stunt. Junior, weirdly enough, has been winning tons of points with me as of late because the fall out of this has left him with some great lines. In fact, he has the best lines of the show, from complaining about his sister possibly breaking the alien toy in his cereal to wishing his sister would be called back to hell, from whence she originated, or something. Matt is too preoccupied with his failing farm to be of much interest to me, especially since he's STUPID and decides that betting more on random sporting events is going to get him somewhere. Dude, it doesn't work that way.

Anyway, eventually Jean's ring shows back up and Matt confesses to having taken it because he has all these lingering issues about his father. Jean insists that she had to take him and his brother away because it was the only option, because really, Matt doesn't want to be in Kris's shoes. Speaking of Kris, she finds out that Matt stole the ring and immediately has a freak out about how she kept (wrongly) accusing her mother. Although apparently she seems to have forgotten about all that passive aggressive "come home because it will help me, not you" stuff her mom was pulling, even after Jean has this long conversation with her about how nothing her mom does is Kris's fault. All true.

SO. Kris gets all pissed at Matt and Matt calls Junior, who rushes to find her in his Porsche so he can take her to the bus station in order for her to have a goodbye with her mother, who has decided to leave without Kris. Kris demands to know why Junior wants to take her to the station, and I found this part pretty sweet. He levels with her, and says his mom left in a taxi, which is all he remembers, and he was too young to have any say. Kris gets to have a say, so she decides this is a good reason and gets in the car. Nice, Junior. You are growing on me ever more, despite your horrible name.

Kris goes to the bus stop, and Junior looks on awkwardly as she says goodbye to her mom and apologizes for thinking she stole the ring, etc. Her mom is still annoying, mainly because she's probably going to go fall off the wagon again. No, I have no sympathy.

Then Matt, in his quest to continue being stupid, goes back to his bookie's house to bet on another game, finding Dani there, topless and proud of it. It was highly amusing, because that would happen to Matt of all people. Seriously, did anyone think Kris was going to wind up with him after that scene? Um, no. It was going to be Junior from the get go. This is plain as freaking day.

Oh, yeah, and Wildfire had some issue with gates at the track. He kept shying at them and refusing to go in, but he would go in a gate just fine at Raintree. Todd, Matt's younger brother, discovers that the answer to this is the goat that they have at Raintree. They take the goat to the track, and miraculously it works. This was the Thoroughbred plot for this episode, obviously.

And that's it for this episode. Now I finally get to return this disc to Netflix and see what else is in my giant queue of horsey movies and tv shows. Should I get more Wildfire? Should I get a movie? Something else? What say you?

Mary Anderson is not conducive to my mental stability.

Down to the Wire
Thoroughbred #38
by Mary Newhall Anderson

This is one of those books where I'll just start to type as I read, because Down to the Wire is Mary Anderson's debut, and I think it's rather widely acknowledged that Mary was exceptionally well meaning, but she half-assed on the execution. This might be because Mary wasn't exactly the strongest writer brought on board the Thoroughbred series. In fact, this book is a little painful in the show not tell department. However, Mary tried, and seemed so genuinely determined, so I'll always give her a little sentimental A for effort, but honestly she did a lot of weird things, for which I can never quite forgive her.

I don't mind this cover, although something about it looks awkward. It is nice to see yet another version of Whitebrook's silks on a Thoroughbred cover, though. That is a big plus.

A tough choice...

Wonder's Star has returned to Whitebrook Farm, and Christina Reese is thrilled to have him home again. But if Star doesn't win one of his first two races, Townsend Acres will take him back forever.

Christina isn't a jockey yet -- the thought of racing terrifies her -- but Star won't run well for anyone else. Will Christina have to become Star's jockey in order to save him?

This is actually a correct summary, if you don't count that tag line, because I can't quite figure out what the tough choice is referring to. What tough choice is she making in this summary? The choice between jockeying Star and possibly keeping him, or not jockeying Star and definitely not keeping him? There is no hint of this being a choice in the book. There's hardly even a choice between Sterling and Star in the book. So...gotta love those summary writers, am I right?

That all said, let's hop back on the recycled plotline merry-go-round. Star is preparing to start his racing career, and there's all this angst about it because if Star doesn't do well in one of his first two races he will be shipped back to Townsend Acres, where he needlessly suffered for no discernible reason other than it suited Alice Leonhardt's whims. Lately he's just been super shiny, what with Chris exercising him at Keeneland and what all. Apparently Mary has been doing some racing homework, because she's breaking out all these racing rules about published works and requirements that have to be met before a horse can be entered in its first race. You see, these are things I appreciate for their levels of realism, but to a certain degree it's just filler. In this case, who knows if they're totally made up facts. In this instance, I didn't really care. The important thing to note is how anxious Chris is about the whole thing. Training Star = Racing Star = Possibly Giving Up Star. Her logic is remarkably simple, and repeated frequently. This issue rears its ugly head immediately in the first chapter, when Brad and Parker show up at Keeneland to see what Ashleigh & Co. are up to with Star. The conversation goes as all conversations inevitably do when Brad discusses anything with someone from Whitebrook. Essentially:

Brad: Hi.
Ash: *cool stare* Hello.
Brad: *is too cool to care* I see you are working Star. How is he?
Ash: He is fine.
Brad: His times suggest he should start racing.
Ash: We are in agreement.
Brad: Great. Tell me when you're racing him. How about in two weeks? I'll be around then.
Christina: *shifty eyes*
Ash: We will inform you of our race choice ASAP.
Brad: Excellent. I will now depart. *departs*
Christina: OMG! I HATE HIM!
Ash: I know honey, I know.

Seriously?

Anyway, Brad exits with Parker, who does not give Christina the immediate attention she desires and yearns for, which obviously tips Christina off that something is wrong. Although we can save this for later, because this is just one of the issues with Mary's writing. What we have to deal with now is Star being a Wonder foal. Obviously the Wonder foals are exceptional race horses, but none of those horses were really that sane. They're all persnickety brats when it comes right down to it, and Star is no exception. He is a one person horse, just like his mom, which we all saw coming. So when Naomi tries to exercise him, his times suffer, and while no one thinks that's a big deal, Chris is about ready to have a heart attack over it. Chris should clearly be Star's jockey, but because I guess everyone lacks the necessary foresight here, she does not have her jockey's license and there is no time for her to get a license before his first race, and she needs to have a few test races first before she can just get on a maiden...all very logical except there was all that time before...you know, between when Christina was fifteen in the last book and when she's sixteen in this one? What have they been doing? Anticipating disaster and looking forward to the angsting they can accomplish?

Well, whatevers. When Star's race comes up, Naomi rides him and Star barely gets what's expected of him. He practically canters past the grandstand, then passes most of the horses like they're standing still, then goes back to cantering or something and comes in fourth. This is a disaster, clearly. Star has one more chance to get his act together, or back he goes to live with Brad.

Next to this whole issue we have dear, sweet Parker, who is over there acting all weird in Christina's uber special presence. He's avoiding Christina, and even goes so far as to drive her home from school in complete silence, provoking Christina's probing questions about his home life. Randomly he tells her that his father is trying to control his life and his mother spends too much time with her beauty products, and his is not a happy home. Although then he seems to do a complete turn around during yet another picnic, when he tells Christina that he has a sudden change of college plans, which now include going to a business school in Italy, of all places, because Brad somehow has connections in Italy. Naturally, I don't question Brad having connections in Italy, I just wonder about why Parker is all happy to go, especially after he's all reticent to listen to Brad's nefarious plans to dictate his life (according to Parker). Perhaps it has something to do with Brad changing tactics and using his persuasive voice...who knows. Anyway, Parker seems to have decided on Italy, letting Brad plan his life for him and seemingly being okay with the manipulation...again. Really, it's too easy for Brad in some cases.

While Brad is busy getting Parker to fall into line with his plans, he's also busy manipulating Ashleigh (again). He wants Star to race in some other stakes at Churchill Downs, and because Brad has ordered it, it's going to damn well happen. Ashleigh yet again bows to his will, which never ceases to amaze me, and because it's been proven that Naomi and Star are a no go, they are going to use Melanie on Star, who has somehow been proven to connect with Star enough to get results (I guess this happened at some point, because there is photographic evidence, but Mary never bothers to show us Melanie and Star interacting much at all, so I remain unconvinced). Christina is pissy some more about this development, and so is Melanie, because Melanie knows Christina has a bond with Star and blah blah blah. The problem here is, of course, that Christina has no license. This is because she hasn't mastered gate work yet. So she gets her ass in gear and starts to work on the gate. This takes up a lot of time, because she really sucks at breaking out of the gate. When Ashleigh gets her a gate test, she actually loses a stirrup and nearly falls off the horse, so while I appreciate that Christina isn't immediately perfect at this stuff (such as Cindy, and Ashleigh before her, not to mention Samantha's random steeplechase) I still have to wonder...why weren't they working on this way way way before their inevitable problem?

In the middle of her gate work issues, Christina decides to move Sterling to Samantha's farm, and subsequently sells Sterling. Samantha buys her and decides to lease her out to the new girl, Kaitlin. I will give Mary some points here, because I think she did a good job with...some of this. I wasn't too thrilled with Samantha suddenly going, "Oh, hey, I have money and can buy Sterling." Also the whole plot is still contrived and forced, given all the anti-racing sentiments other authors (Allison Estes, I'm looking at you) forced on Christina. That goes without saying. However, Christina didn't dump Sterling off with Kaitlin without putting thought behind her actions, and I liked the transition Mary made between leaving Sterling with Samantha and moving on to Star, so while I get the complaining about this, I would have had a far greater issue had Christina kept Sterling and managed to have the best of both worlds. So, frankly, I feel most of the angry reaction to "dumping" Sterling off on Kaitlin was exaggerated. There was plenty of discussion about what was fair to the horse, so I can't see what more we could have logically expected from Thoroughbred on this.

Anyway, we're getting closer to race time for Star and Ashleigh is still being all weird about letting Christina test again, even after Christina has worked and worked to the point of perfection on breaking from the gate. Why does Ashleigh stall on this? It's Mary Anderson's attempt at creating false drama, and that's pretty much it. She gives absolutely no reason why she wants Christina to wait...she just does. However, conveniently for Christina, Ashleigh wants to take Star and Melanie up to Churchill Downs for a week to prepare for the race. I guess Melanie no longer needs to be at school...I'm sure her dad is thrilled. This gives Christina a window to act irresponsibly (but always correctly) to go out and get her gate test done without Ashleigh's approval. She calls up Parker, insists on having him drive her and Sassy Jazz to Keeneland, and she tests wonderfully with Vicky and Tommy (jockeys who were apparently there way back when in Thoroughbred canon, but not, if you get my drift). Christina gets her jockey's license, and all is happiness and light until she gets home and realizes that Ashleigh has heard all about this and has rushed home to tell Chris that there is no guarantee that she'll ride Star in his race. Basically: "Congratulations! Oh, but this doesn't mean I'm letting you actually apply this to anything, sweetie. You disobeyed me, so feel my random, heartfelt wrath." Christina is crushed and feels the impending doom, probably envisioning Brad polishing his equine torture equipment.

So after this Ashleigh decides that they feel obligated to go to a flashy function, quite possibly the only function they've been to involving the Townsends that doesn't involve marriage vows. During the dinner, Ashleigh and Mike announce that Christina will ride Star, but then Brad comes along to rain on their parade by stating the obvious: Christina is not experienced enough! Or at all! She might, like, cause an accident, so he insists that he will make sure Christina doesn't ride the colt using his super co-owner powers. Ashleigh tries to cut in to argue, but he simply silences her by raising his hand and casually tells her that he'll protest and Star is as good as his. Ashleigh, completely astonished by how awesome he is, immediately surrenders. Like she always does.

Anyway, before the race, Melanie fakes an injury and Christina is swiftly ushered in as the replacement rider. Brad will never know because he always watches the races from the stands...which means he never visits the walking ring, or something? (Not to even mention this is totally not Brad's style, but whatever.) So Parker, of all people, gives Christina a leg up and she sees Brad looking all pissed off, but it's too late! She is on the horse and...yeah, like a horse can't be scratched at this point. Uh-huh. There's also this handy thing called disqualification, but we won't get into that.

So we have this super long race scene, where Christina spends most of the time freaking out as we get a furlong by furlong blow by blow of every tiny freaking thing that happens. Wow, that took a long time. Christina wins, Brad pretends to be happy (you know, he could be happy...I mean, what the hell?), Ashleigh and Brad have some weird off screen moment, Parker blows Christina a kiss and randomly tells her he's not going to Europe. He, like, never wanted to go in the beginning. Of course, I guess. Then everyone has a collective crazy moment over how fantastic Star is and how Ashleigh is so proud of Christina and everyone can rest easy. Star is staying at Whitebrook, everyone. Super!

• Melanie guided Heart through an invisible opening between the two leaders. An invisible opening?

• Mary has a tendency to simplify things to the point where she inadvertently changes facts. For instance, Ashleigh originally shipped Star off to Townsend Acres because she blamed herself for Wonder's death and seeing Star every day constantly reminded her of that fact. In Down to the Wire, this explanation has shifted to Ashleigh blaming Star for Wonder's death. I can see how Mary would make this mistake -- it's an easy one to make -- but it's just one of the many little ways she took a more complicated issue and dumbed it down.

• Also, Ashleigh did not ride Wonder in the Kentucky Derby. Why do we keep insisting on this, Mary? Why?

• Ashleigh says something about finding a nice maiden race for Star, and I guess all the nice maiden races were no good, or something, because she comes up with something called the Keeneland Futurity instead. By the way, this is all taking place in late March/early April...when two-year-olds aren't exactly running. Are we curious about the disconnect between Christina throwing a fit over backing Star a little earlier than expected and everyone totally being okay with racing Star before he's technically two? Yeah, I thought not.
  

• "I know it sounds pompous, but..." Wow, where have I heard this line before? Oh, yes. It was when Cindy said basically the same thing about being Glory's one special person in Glory's Triumph. Yes, Christina, it does make you sound horribly pompous to simply walk around telling people that they are not as special as you. Of course, in any real world this might rub someone the wrong way, but in Christina's world everyone more or less agrees.

• Everyone keeps shortening Samantha's name to Sam. This irritates me, because it was always shortened to Sammy, and even in the narrative it was always Samantha, not Sam.

• I find it weird that Parker is suddenly going to Henry Clay. Especially when Christina goes out to wait for Parker to pick her up after school. Like, couldn't she just walk out to his car with him? On top of that, no way in hell would Brad have his kid in a public school. There is about 0% chance of that being possible.

• I, personally, loved the scene where Christina had to go talk to the racing stewards before getting her license. There's something ridiculous about a few old men looking down their noses at Christina and saying something to the effect of: "Young lady, racing is dangerous. You know that, right?"

• Ashleigh spends a nice moment with Christina before the race, when she gives Chris her saddle that she used with Wonder. Only this occurs in the jockey's room, and jockeys don't bring their saddles out with them to the saddling paddock. But whatevers.

• Brad knows. Again. Christina assumes that he has been maneuvering to get Star back at Townsend Acres, but honestly I think he just likes creating drama while he gets everyone else to do all the work. He manipulates everyone, gets a winning race horse, and creates some havoc while he's at it. Sounds like a fun plan to me.
  

So, that completes the Wonder's Legacy trilogy. Started out great, got a little rocky, and then completely fell apart. That's the sort of consistency I like in my Thoroughbred books.

Saddle Club: In which we get three-dimensional characters, yay!

Saddle Club S.1.11 “Greener Pastures Part 2”

First off, I’m sorry I haven’t posted lately. I seem to have to catch every cold that goes around this month. Indiana weather is not helping. OK, the last episode was good. Really good by Saddle Club standards. It made me cry and everything.

This episode starts off with a memorial of sorts for Cobalt in his favorite field. Everyone takes a turn saying something. Carole and Veronica are both silent, giving each other death stares.

Carole blames Veronica completely, which is fair to a degree, but Carole blows it entirely out of proportion. She’s super pissed that anyone feels sorry for Veronica and wants her banned from Pine Hollow. She then goes completely emo, tearing down her horse pictures and saying she quits horses.

While Max is giving a lesson, Sam says he doesn’t think it’s fair acting like nothing happened. Max tells Sam it’s okay if he wants to sit out the jumping for now.

Carole continues to be emo, Lisa and Stevie don’t want to go to lessons without her. They inform Carole that Starlight is miserable without her, and she tries to tell them to ride him.
At Pine Hollow, Ashley tries to get Delilah to eat. She tells Mrs. Reg that Delilah is missing Cobalt. Starlight is also acting lonely.

Max is giving Sam a jumping lesson, but Sam keeps pulling Pepper up before the jumps. Max tells him he can lay off the jumping until he feels ready. Max is hot. Yes, this is a mandatory statement.

The vet stops in to see Delilah and says there’s nothing to worry about. She asks about Carole, but Max and Mrs. Reg only say that she’s taking Cobalt’s death very hard, but they wouldn’t give up on her yet.

Dr. Judy visits Carole at her home. She explains that prolonging Cobalt’s suffering would be much harder than letting him go. Carole retorts that sometimes you can save a horse, but the owner tells you not to bother. Carole pouts.

Later, Carole asks Stevie and Lisa to sell Starlight for her. They try to tell her that they all feel bad about Cobalt, but she criticizes them for continuing to ride. Stevie points out that the other horses don’t deserve to be punished for what happens. Carole gets pissed off some more and storms out.

Stevie and Lisa are worried about both Carole and Starlight. Stevie comes up with a scheme and Lisa looks worried and mildly disgusted. Really, her expression sums up how I feel about most of Stevie’s plans.

They go to Carole’s house and tell her they’ve found a buyer. Starlight needs a rider and this person needs a horse. Carole even knows the buyer. It’s Veronica. Stevie’s lie lights a fire under Carole’s butt and she heads for the barn as Stevie gives Lisa an ‘I told you so smirk.’

Carole tells Starlight that he doesn’t want to be around her. After her mother and Cobalt’s deaths, she thinks she’s jinxed. Carole then attacks Veronica, saying she can’t have Starlight. Veronica obviously has no idea what she’s talking about. Carole then says she can’t believe Veronica can even look at another horse. Veronica starts getting upset as Carole tells her Cobalt would still be alive if it weren’t for her, and that she’s not going to let her kill Starlight too. Veronica begins to cry and says she’s not getting another horse.

She says that her parents wanted to buy her an expensive jumper, but she didn’t want it. She also admits that she knows it was her fault, that Cobalt didn’t want to jump, but he didn’t want to let her down. As she cries, Carole comforts her. It’s a fairly touching moment.

Sam blames himself, because he challenged Veronica to the jump off. Mrs. Reg convinces him that it wasn’t his fault, and encourages him to try jumping again. As he goes to get Pepper he notices that Delilah is acting strange. Lisa and Stevie gawk at the sight of Veronica and Carole talking as Sam comes running out to get Mrs. Reg and Dr. Judy. At Delilah’s stall, Max tells them all that she’s just cranky. He then reveals that she’s pregnant with Cobalt’s foal. They didn’t want to say anything until they knew she was alright. Everyone’s happy. Yay.

Later, Carole is watching the video of her lesson and being slightly less emo. When some footage of her mom comes on, she and her dad share some good memories from before her mother got sick. Carole’s dad says it’s okay to be happy and sad at the same time. Hugs and sad music, and Carole’s dad is kinda pretty.

The next day, Carole gives Veronica a picture she took of Cobalt and offers to help the vet with Delilah. The Saddle Club then exchange hugs and giggles. The end.

This was another good episode. Carole’s behavior may seem a little extreme, but it’s a fairly accurate interpretation of a grieving child. Veronica got to be three-dimensional two episodes in a row. Whoo hoo. What the heck, this episode gets an A as well. We’re on a roll!