Wild About Horses by Lawrence Scanlan

Author:Lawrence Scanlan [Scanlan, Lawrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-36422-7
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Published: 1999-09-21T04:00:00+00:00

Marguerite Henry surely read of Black Beauty. She wrote several classics of her own: Misty of Chincoteague, King of the Wind and Black Gold. There is enough subtlety in the characters and enough genuine detail to counter Henry’s own insistence that the heart be warmed, that the tale end happily.

A horse called Black Gold did indeed win the 1924 Kentucky Derby. The book gives a keen sense of that horse, his line and the people close to him. In his youth, the horse’s Irish jockey, Jaydee Mooney, had tended the horses that pull funeral coaches. One of his jobs was to “take the vinegar” out of the horses by riding them just before the funeral so they would look more stately in the procession. The job taught him something important about riding: “The chief thing, he discovered, was to be one with the horse, to be part of him, motion for motion.”

Black Gold is out of a filly named Useeit (she was so tiny as a foal she could barely see out the half door of her stall, and thus the name) and by a fine Kentucky Thoroughbred stallion named Black Toney. It is Useeit, an Oklahoma filly bred by Osage Indians, almost as much as her famous foal, Black Gold, who wins the reader’s heart.

The tale is clear, never muddied; the writing, admirably simple; the metaphors, aptly chosen. As Useeit matures, she got “round and solid as an apple. And her eyes, always beautiful, became so full of health and liquid light that one was stopped by their brilliance.” Her brown coat had a sheen, “like a plain brown boulder made glossy by the water that flows over it.”

In real life, the horse’s trainer told his wife on his deathbed that he wanted Useeit bred to Black Toney because he had a vision of the mare throwing a Derby winner.

In true storybook fashion, Black Gold is born with his father’s great endurance and his mother’s breathtaking speed. But his owner, a selfish and misguided old man, fails to take action after the Derby win when the horse develops a crack in a front hoof. Black Gold, meanwhile, still loves to race. The bugle call from a nearby private track sets him off, and every day he conducts a little race in his paddock, wearing a circle on the perimeter.

Finally, during an actual race in New Orleans, Black Gold snaps a leg above the ankle; only tape holds it in place. “But,” as the track announcer puts it, “he finished his race — on three legs and a heart he finished it.” He was buried at that track, Fair Grounds Park, where every year the winning jockey in the Black Gold Stakes puts a wreath of flowers on the grave.

Human affection for horses may owe something to generations of readers returning over and over to the well of literature on horses. My Friend Flicka, a book that dates from 1941, begins: “High up on the long hill they called the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.