High-Stepping Horses
ed. Frances E. Clarke
1963, Acorn Books (The Macmillan Company)
Dedicated to the memory of Man O'War
The stories
I've divided them up based on style - most seem to be fiction, there are some which are clearly non-fiction (obituaries of Man O'War and Anna, for instance) and some which are written in a non-fiction style.
Fiction
The Horseman In The Sky (Ambrose Bierce)
The figure of the man sat the figure of the horse, straight and soldierly, but with the repose of a Grecian god carved in the marble which limits the suggestion of activity.
Bierce's famous Civil War short story where honor and duty vie with love and family, centered on a Confederate calvalry officer paused atop a hill.
The Bride Of The Man-Horse (Lord Dunsany)
from The Book Of Wonder (1912)
Her father has been half centaur and half god, her mother was the child of a desert-lion and that sphinx that watches the pyramids, she was more mystical than Woman
The centaur Shepperalk steals the beautiful, lonely and fabulous Sombelene to be his wife.
Florian Performs For Franz Joseph (Felix Salten)
from the book Florian: The Emperor's Stallion (1934)
Florian strode as those horses who, centuries ago, triumphantly and conscious of the triumphant occasion, bore Caesars and conquerors into vaquished cities or in homecoming processions.
The Lipizzan stallion Florian and his rider Ennsbauer perform for the Emperor of Austria.
Metzengerstein (Edgar Allan Poe)
first published in the Saturday Courier magazine (1832)
We caught him flying, all smoking and foaming with rage, from the burning stables of the Castle Berlifitzing.
A vicious young baron inherits a murdered neighbor's magnificent but seemingly cursed stallion.
Pegasus, The Winged Horse Of The Ancients (Marshall Reid)
It was not that Pegasus was frightened, but that he had never known the love of man - or of horse either, for there was no horse like him. He had always lived along and he liked it best that way.
Another retelling of Bellerophon and the golden bridle, the battle with the Chimaera, and his decision to free the wild winged stallion Pegasus.
Silver Blaze Sir (Arthur Conan Doyle)
The Memoirs Of Sherlock Holmes (1892)
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson travel to
A Genuine Mexican Plug (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)
A chapter from the novel "Roughing It" by Mark Twain.
a black beast that had as many humps and corners on him as a dromedary
Twain impulsively buys this bargain - $27 for horse, saddle and bridle - and then discovers the horse's two talents - bucking and taking chances that nearly kill his riders and would kill any other horse.
The Summer Of The Beautiful White Horse (William Saroyan)
from the collection My Name Is
Early every morning for two weeks my cousin Mourad and I took the horse out of the barn of the deserted vineyard where we were hiding it and rode it, and every morning the horse, when it was my turn to ride alone, leaped over grape vines and small trees and threw me and ran away
Mourad and
Blue Murder (William Daniel Steele)
from a magazine story ( 1925)
No outlash here of heels in fright. Here was a forefoot. An attack aimed and frontal; an onslaught reared, erect; beast turned biped; red eyes made to white eyes aghast...
When his brother Jim is killed by a rogue stallion, silent blacksmith Camden Bluedge goes after the animal, which has run off into the wilderness.
The Brown Mare (Alfred Ollivant)
from the book The Brown Mare And Other Stories Of
She was honest and she was kind, with the heart of a woman and the manners of a lady.
A groom and a major in WWI cavalry tend their favorite mare, Kitty.
"Joker" (A Horse That Lived Up To His Name) (Will James)
from Horses I've Known (1940)
A cowboy is flummoxed by a young horse who has a talent for getting them both into strange situations.
Champions Of The Peaks (Paul Annixter)
from the book The Hunting Horn And Other Stories (1957)
The 2-year-old colt Slippy runs away in the company of the big old dog Sounder, but the duo ends up lost in the mountains and searching for a way home.
Bucephalus: A King's Horse (Alice Gall and Fleming Crew)
Another retelling of the legend of Bucephalus and the young Alexander, whose canny recognition of the source of the horse's spooking foretold his later exploits. This version introduces a new character, the slave Orestes, who loves the horse before it was sold to Alexander.
The Maltese Cat (Rudyard Kipling)
A cheap lot of polo ponies face a team made up of high-priced horses from the pick of the Indian crop. A classic, told from the point of view of the ponies themselves, particularly the driven, charismatic Maltese Cat.
Nonfiction
Arabians (Howard J. Lewis)
A quick summation of the Arabian breed of horse.
Babieca: Steed of El Cid
The legend of the Spanish national hero and his white warhorse.
Cristiano: A Horse (W.H. Hudson)
from The Book Of A Naturalist (1919)
The naturalist recounts how, on a trip to the pampas of his native Argentina, he misinterprets the behavior of a gaucho's grey horse, whose preternatural alertness and restlessness he attributes to playfulness until the gaucho tells him the horse was born wild and has retained the wild animal's watchfulness.
The King Is Dead (Arthur Daley)
from the
The King is dead and he leaves no successor
An obituary for the racehorse and sire Man O'War, who died a few weeks after his long-time groom Will Harbut.
Gato Taught Me A Lesson (A.F. Tschiffely)
from the book "Tschiffely's Ride" (1933) (aka "The Ride," and or "Southern Cross to Pole Star"
The writer and adventurer discovers the intelligence and value of his new horse, Gato, when he tries to force the horse to cross a seemingly placid river.
Equestrian Interlude (Tursa)
The writer recalls some of his horses from his time in
Anna from the NYT
Anna Dies At 39 from the NY Herald Tribune
Two newspaper stories about the death of a white mare, Anna, who for 25 years appeared at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City in the opera Aida.
Flight: An Appreciation (James C. Bendrodt)
From the book "A Story Of Courage:
You owned a queer sort of stark, remorseless courage that transcended mere speed
A racehorse fan salutes the Australian champion Flight, a bay filly.
The Suburban Horse (H.C. Bunner)
by Henry Cuyler Bunner(1896)
I know only that they walk as if they had corns, and that they are always sick; and these, I am assured, are signs of high blood and great commercial value in a horse.
A wry look at the horse, from the dying years of the pre-auto era, when anyone living in the suburbs would have used a horse as transportation.
Poems
The Stallion (Walt Whitman)
The Broncho That Would Not Be Broken (Vachel Lindsay)
The Runaway (Robert Frost)
Other books compiled by editor
Valiant Dogs
Cats--And Cats
Gallant Horses
Wild Animals
Of Cats And Men
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