Top 5 Horse Books

First, my apologies to any non- horsey readers. Regularly scheduled content will resume soon :)
My $100 Chapters gift card has been spent. It took a long time for me to make my decisions because I could not for the life of me find a recommended horse related book list that didn't include sci fi, fantasy, or kid's books and it was painful sifting through the individual reviews one by one. Currently, my interest lies in training and competing young horses. So for now, this list will contain the books I've read that I've found really valuable in that regard. I have a pretty extensive collection, though there are many I haven't read that I'm sure deserve a spot on this list.  If there is some interest in my favorite horse related fiction let me know and I'll post that too. This blog is getting a bit off track, so I'll let that list wait for a later date.

In no particular order:

"Training the Three Day Event Horse and Rider" James C. Wofford
This book is great in that there's common sense advice that transcends any specific discipline. The author is pretty much the go to guy for eventing and has many accolades as a rider and trainer (understatement of the day). Add to that his talent for writing, and I end up a little jealous. You could read this book knowing nothing about the sport, and by the end you'll feel like you are well on your way to competing. For more experienced riders, there's still an abundant amount of information. I love the competition photos in this one, the advice for getting your horse fit, and the sample practice exercises.


"Dressage With Kyra" Kyra Kyrklund and Jytte Lemkow

Again, an excellent introductory book, and also one with a lot of advice for experienced riders. Again, Kyra is an immensely experienced rider and trainer. I like this book's logical approach from the basics to Olympic level. The author makes it seem so simple when in reality it's anything but. For those of you, like me, who are easily confused by complicated descriptions and esoteric terms, this is the book for you. There are tons of illustrated diagrams of the more difficult concepts, lots of pictures, and you can't beat Kyra's straightforward, simple, approach. If only there was a little more advice for when things don't go according to the book!

"101 Exercises From Top Riders" Compiled by Jaki Bell

This one doesn't exactly tell you how to train your horse, but instead, takes useful exercises from some of the world's best riders. I like how each exercise comes with a diagram, a written description of what you should be accomplishing in the horses' training and what can go wrong and how to fix it. Very handy, and excellent for referring to when you have a particular training problem you'd like to address. I only wish it came in a small waterproof version that I could refer to on horseback.

"Hunter Seat Equitation" George H. Morris

No list would be complete without this one. George Morris is THE guy to go to for hunter or jumper advice, or even horse care, or even, well, pretty much anything. This book is irreplaceable as far as I'm concerned. Once again, we're getting advice from the best of the best. George Morris is a well known rider, trainer, coach, and author. Again, we have a straightforward, common sense approach, with no magical formulas. Pretty much all you need is some talent (I wish!), and a ton of dedication, self discipline and a commitment to doing the best for you and your horse. I love that this book doesn't deal strictly with as the title suggests "Hunt Seat Equitation".  There is a lot of very valuable advice on the initial training and flat work necessary for the horse, and of course the training and fitness necessary for the rider to be successful. Again, everything proceeds in a logical manner with lots of photos so you can go from knowing next to nothing to having a fairly good grasp of what you need to do to be successful.

"Training the Young Horse" Pippa Funnel

Once again, an author who knows what she's talking about...I'm sensing a trend here! Another book that I couldn't do without. I love the photos in this one. This is one of the few 'How to" books where the pictures don't always depict a perfect moment in time. Pippa's inclusion of the not so perfect moments and her resulting critiques of herself and the horses is very refreshing and insightful. We start from the basics all the way up to some advanced level training and I just love the no nonsense, just do it approach she has. Some of the photos show horses that are a bit more lively than most of us would like to ride, yet she treats it as a normal part of training and doesn't make a fuss about it. Very inspiring.

There are about a million other books with a lot of useful advice, particularly some of the classical dressage trainers. I'll be quite honest though, most of these types of books can be quite dry and I end up picking and choosing what I read out of them. The above books are the ones that held my interest from cover to cover.

Jilly Cooper's "Jump"

You knew I'd never resist this one. It has horses in it, after all. This is Jilly Cooper's latest, and I think it's a bit of a success. It features Etta Bancroft, a widower who gets involved in the world of steeplechase racing in Britain. When Etta is widowed, her husband leaves everything to their children. The children sell her home and move her closer to them so she can look after the grandchildren. Etta finds an an abused and neglected horse and nurses it back to health, upon which she enters it in steeplechases. I generally like Jilly's books because they are trashy and fun without being mindless. There's always interesting social commentary, references and quotes to more 'serious' literature, and thoroughly interesting descriptions of the places, events, and settings.

What I liked:
-The fact that she's returned to a subject (the English horsey set) she seems more interested in. Her other more recent books like "Wicked" and "Score" (about a downtrodden school and a murder-mystery respectively) seemed out of touch.
-She brought back a lot of the best characters from her past books.
-Lots of funny and sometimes insightful commentary.
-The animals are characters unto themselves. The horse, Mrs Wilkinson, is a particularly endearing character.
-The descriptions of the places, the races, etc are really well done.

What I didn't like:
-The main character, while sweet, is a 70 something grandmother who let her husband, and now her kids, manipulate her horribly. When her wealthy husband dies, the kids sell her house, take all the money and move her to a nearby cottage so she can cook and babysit their kids. And they make her pay them back for the cottage too. The happy ending is that she gets a proposal from a guy who is handsome, kind and rich. I'd have liked it better if she wasn't so helpless and told her family where to go and made a success of herself on her own.
-There are about a million characters in this book. I've read her previous books, so am familiar with some of them, and still had trouble keeping everyone straight.
-I hated that one of the characters is Pakistani, and had at one time been training as a suicide bomber. The negative stereotype bothers me. Some of the discussion surrounding him and the situation also seemed a bit patronizing.
-The single people are portrayed as kind of hopeless. One in particular is apparently shunned and made fun of because she has buck teeth? Of course, once she gets her teeth fixed she gets married LOL. The women in general in this book are subservient to the men, either that or they are portrayed as bitchy workaholics. I'm no women's rights freak, but the characters do seem a bit outdated.
-This book still seems a bit out of touch, not so much as her other recent ones, but it's still there. You can tell the author is getting older as some of the views and lifestyle choices that sneak their way into the book are pretty close minded, unlike her first novels which were pretty reflective of the times.

Bottom line - If you're a fan, don't buy this one thinking it will be another "Riders" or "Polo". Its not. But it's better than her last few.
If you're not a fan, and are looking for something upbeat and fun, maybe skip this one for now and read one of the above mentioned first. They're much better. And they still have horses in them :)

Oh Edgar!

"The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" by David Wroblewski

I've read this one about 3 times so far. The writing is, in one word, beautiful. I cannot believe this is someones first novel. The only other book that I treasure so much just for the writing is Norman Maclean's "A River Runs Through It".
I'm sure you've all read "Edgar", so I'll save the plot summary. If you're one of the few on earth who escaped hearing about this book, just do yourself a favour and go buy it now. I won't give away the ending just in case.
Being an animal lover and owner and wannabe horse trainer, I frequently find dog/horse/animal centric books disappointing for any number of reasons. Maybe the terminology was wrong or maybe the characters, animal or human, just didn't ring true. This one has none of that. The details were, for me, absolutely and wonderfully accurate, leaving me to sit back and enjoy the story. This book just pulls you in and you feel like this story is familiar somehow. OK so maybe it is. It is, after all, pretty much a modern day retelling of Hamlet. I can tell you I'd have been much happier in high school English if this version of the story was the one on offer :) This book is seriously the only one I've ever cried over, not because I felt it was sad, so much, but I felt like it was unfair. Maybe not so much the escape I thought it would be and more a reflection of real life. Maybe a little bit because something so beautiful came to an end. Trust me, I'm as tough as they come, but this book got to me on so many levels, so much so that the first time I read it I put it down and thought I'd never have the heart to pick it up again. After some thought, of course I wouldn't change a thing about it. A nice tidy ending would have felt contrived and fake. I'm looking forward to future books from this author and I can tell you now, "Edgar" is staying on my bookshelf until he falls apart. Then I'll probably go buy a new one.

And the next book is....

"In a Far Country" by Linda Holeman

It's set in 19th century India and is a story about a British missionary couple's daughter. I'm only a few pages in so can't say much more than that :) I picked this one up while on vacation and had to pay a premium because it's printed in english...so it had better be good!
The weather looks to be uncharacteristically sunny tomorrow so I'm thinking I'll finally get some riding in. Yes, I do have horses, two of my own and also some work riding others. The book will have to wait til evening when I am cold and tired and can curl up in front of the fireplace. Warning, I may not be able to be too critical in such a content state of mind.