The Black Stallion's Filly (1952)

The Black Stallion's Filly
Walter Farley, il. Milton Menasco
1952, Random House

Black Minx came into the ring held firmly by the white-coated attendants who handled all the horses up for sale. She was coal black and small. She had a quick, competent walk as she was led about the ring, and it was apparent to those who watched her that her limited size was misleading, for she had more muscle than was noticeable at first glance. Her head was light and beautiful with great breadth between sharp eyes, a slightly dished nose, a narrow muzzle and sensitive nostrils. Her only disfigurement was a short tail, so short that it was barely more than a stump.


Henry Daily, bored with life on Hopeful Farm after he retires Satan from the track, decides to buy himself a racehorse. He buys a two-year-old filly by the Black despite her dubious history (she took her last jockey through the rail, breaking his collarbone), sure he can fix her. Alec, content to stay home at the farm, isn't so sure, but in his quiet, reliable way decides not to argue but do everything he can to help his old friend achieve his goal - to have this wild, wilfull, contrary filly whose last race ended in the infield, ready to run in America's premiere classic, the Kentucky Derby. And win.

...[Alec] went back in memory to the days when Henry had taken him and the Black under his wing, when Henry had encouraged him to race the Black because he had confidence in Alec's ability to handle the stallion on the racetrack. At the time, Henry's enthusiasm had sounded just as fantastic... But it had turned out the way Henry had said it would. He had ridden the Black to victory over the best horses in the country.

First, Henry and Alec have to fix the filly's horrible ground manners, which include biting and kicking. In a sequence which is ground indelibley into the minds of anyone who reads the book, Henry finally resorts to a baked potato to cure Black Minx's willingness to bite. I won't spoil it by quoting, but that chapter alone makes the book worth reading.


While Henry is the trainer, Alec is the jockey and he quickly realizes that the filly's other issues are nothing compared to her indifference to racing. She has speed, but when Alec tries to work her faster, the filly placidly continues at the same pace as before, ignoring his urging to speed up. Henry's face, always grim, matches the winter weather of their New York state farm as he ponders how to best Black Minx and make her a racehorse.

In the meantime, Henry and Alec watch the televised races of warm-weather racing from Florida and California, where other Derby hopefuls are being honed. California darling Golden Vanity shows blistering speed in winning the Santa Anita Derby, Eastern colt Silver Jet lives up to his status as an early Derby favorite by winning the Flamingo Stakes, a filly named Lady Lee in the Louisiana Derby, and Wintertime and Eclipse in the Experimental.

An interesting book in that gruff, rough Henry has something personal on the line this time, and even loyal Alec sometimes wonders if he's seeing clearly. Farley's racing books tended to give the reader an extensive look at the competition, which creates a sense of realism, showing Henry and Alec studying the races of the horses and jockeys they'll be going up against in the Derby.


Horses
Black Minx - black filly
Golden Vanity - 17h chestnut colt
Moonstruck - bay colt
Silver Jet - grey colt
Lady Lee - filly
Wintertime - blood bay colt
Eclipse - brown colt

Ruth Sanderson paperback from the 1970s.

The most recent paperback edition.

Tamarlane, Strange Son Of Desert Storm (1959)

Only 1 entry so far to win Wild Horse Annie And The Last Of The Mustangs! The deadline to enter is July 4, 2010. To enter, just leave a comment on any post from June 2nd's to July 4th's.

And a quick reference on mustangs in general - the BLM, the U.S. agency that oversees the mustangs, offers online adoptions. For anyone who fantasizes about what you'd buy if you had the money, time, or remotely the skills to buy a wild horse, it's kinda addictive.

And a review which has little to do with mustangs except that the main characters are from the West, and their racehorses were originally wild. I'm not sure how that worked out with the Jockey Club when they went to the track, but who would dream of asking difficult questions of a horse book?

Tamarlane, Strange Son Of Desert Storm

Logan Forster, il. Gerald McCann

1959, Dodd, Mead & Company

...the gate crashed open and a black and a gray body half reared in the openings, hung suspended for a fleeting instant, then flashed into the sunlight.

This third in a four-book series opens with Ponce Stuart's two champion racehorses, the black mare Desert Storm and the grey colt Victorio, in a match race at Belmont Park. The mare, four months pregnant, brilliantly beats the grey but breaks down in the stretch. Her people - owner/jockey Ponce, trainer Gabriel Dreen and Ponce's family Delgadito and Joto (aka The Old Apache) - rally around, knowing that the mare has already survived a broken legs years earlier, and rig up a sling to keep her on her feet until the bone can heal.

To interject - the mare being raced while pregnant seems bizarre, the breakdown scene is heartbreaking, and the scenario that she is saved from death by a sling and cast seems dubious. Onward.

Shaken by the mare's tragedy and his own hard fall, Ponce decides to give up the track and racing. His plans are quickly derailed by an ailing racehorse breeder who presses him to buy the cream of his final crop of young racers. Ponce, pressured by his sharp-eyed kinsmen Joto to not run away, agrees, and regains his strength and courage as he campaigns the new horses, particularly the brilliant gray filly Sage Queen. But even as Ponce forms a new partnership with the Queen, something ominous seems to hang around his new Sunset Stables. When Desert Storm foals, Ponce is devastated. The foal, the colt on which he's hung all his dreams, has a clubfoot.

Three of the legs were perfectly formed, long and straight, with the big knees and ankles of all foals. The fourth, the right foreleg, was the same except for one thing. From ankle to hoof it was a solid, shapeless, queerly twisted lump.

After the first shock, Ponce settles into an angry drive to succeed with Sage Queen, avoiding his beloved Desert Storm and her failure of a foal. His rage pushes him to ride recklessly, heedlessly, with predictable results. When he finally reconciles himself to the deformed foal, he discovers an unusually mellow personality - and an uncanny ability to run sound despite his handicap. It begins to look as if Ponce's bold prediction, before the foal's birth, that this colt would run in the Kentucky Derby, might come true after all.

Despite the attractive illustrations and pleasingly over-the-top plots, Forster's books are plodding. The writing style is overripe, with a few too many trips to the Apache heritage well, and neither human nor equine characters seem particularly real. With one exception - Tamarlane's lazy, oddball personality does stand out in comparison to his more standard-issue parents, the brave mare and the wild stallion.

Logan Forster

I could find out little for certain about the author. There are hints that he was born in Salem, Oregon and he apparently lived in Colorado as an adult. According to the author notes in Mountain Stallion he served 6 years in the Navy, worked a variety of jobs, and attended the University of Colorado. According to a postscript by the author, the real clubfoot racehorse Assault was the inspiration for Tamarlane's story, but his own grey Arabian stallion Mighwar was the basis for his personality.

When it comes to stubbornness, feigned idiocy, laziness and complete lovableness, Mighwar has no equal on this earth.

Also, Forster mentions in the author's note in Tamarlane that he based the mare Desert Storm on the racehorse Busher, a filly whose career was cut short by injury and who became a famous broodmare.

Books

Ponce series

Desert Storm (1955)

Mountain Stallion (1958)

Tamarlane, Strange Son Of Desert Storm (1959)

Revenge (1960)

Stand-alone horse book

Run Fast! Run Far! (1962)

Non-horse

Proud Land (1954) - appears to be about an Apache chief

Anger In The Wind (1974) - appears to be a romantic saga about the early West

Odds and Ends

The full text of Mountain Stallion is available at Internet Archives

The pedigree of Mighwar, the model for Tamarlane

Illustrator

Gerald McCann

1916-

He also did editions of the comic series Classics Illustrated

Other books illustrated by Gerald McCann

Revenge by Logan Forster

Brumby, The Wild White Stallion by Mary Elwyn Patchett

Tam The Untamed by Mary Elwyn Patchett

Rosina Copper, Mystery Mare by Kitty Barne

Classics Illustrated

The Conspiracy Of Pontiac by Francis Parkman

Typee by Herman Melville

The Lion Of The North by G.A. Hentry

The Pilot

The Hunchback Of Notre Dame

The Conspiractor by Alexandre Dumas, pere

The Food Of The Gods by H.G. Wells

Tom Brown's School Days

Puddn'head Wilson by Mark Twain

Links

Gerald McCann at AskArt

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Rachel Alexandra wins Kentucky Oaks by record 20 1/4 lengths

The filly Rachel Alexandra won the Kentucky Oaks, the 'filly' version of the Derby, by a record 20 1/4 lengths. Her owner, 75-year-old Dolphus Morrison, has drawn attention to himself in recent days by his gender-based reasons for not running his filly in the Derby. He apparently made a few early comments about not wanting to run his filly in the Derby due to her gender and then, when the press pushed a little on that, got defensive and stubborn.

"I don't think a stallion should be messed up by the occasional really, really outstanding filly. They should run on their own."

"Stallions should run against stallions because the Triple Crown races are the showcase for the future stallions of our industry, and they should not be messed up by the occasional really, really outstanding filly."

"I thought it was dumb to come right behind Eight Belles with something that possibly could cause that kind of problem... Eight Belles had the physical (attributes) to compete in the Derby, which she did. One bad step got her.”

“I’m kind of weird. I think the Derby is a colts' race and it’s there to showcase the horses that are the top potential stallions. It’s kind of stupid for some jerk with a filly to screw that up. I also just don’t like the idea of 20 horses clang-banging her and knocking each other’s brains out in that first 200 or 300 yards trying to get to that first turn.”

Should the filly have run today with the boys? I certainly don't know. Maybe the sex issue is just a cover for an owner who thinks his filly would be outclassed purely on speed for the big race. But I vastly prefer trainer Hal Wiggins' comment about Rachel Alexandra to the New York Daily News.

"This is the type of horse you're always looking for. I'm just so glad she finally came along."

Links
Rachel Alexandra Is Special - The Sacramento Bee
Rachel Alexandra Wins 2009 Kentucky Oaks - Louisville Courier-Journal
Alexandra The Great Breezes In Oaks - New York Daily News
For a beautiful photo of Rachel Alexandra, see this pre-Oaks article at Bloodhorse.com


Fillies who won the Kentucky Derby
Regret in 1915
Genuine Risk in 1980
Winning Colors in 1988

About.com lists all the fillies that have raced in the Derby, and their results here

Eight Belles was, of course, the most recent filly to run in the classic. Her death last year after a catastrophic injury just beyond the finish line shook the Derby, which had been unusually lucky in never seeing a fatal accident, and put new life into discussions of racetrack safety and drug use. The 2008 Derby winner, Big Brown, was on a regular steroid schedule that many think allowed the colt, whose notoriously bad hooves led to his early retirement that fall, stay sound enough to race.

The filly has been remembered this year at Churchill Downs with a race named after her on the card, and eight bells will be rung before the Derby.

Owner Rick Porter and trainer Larry Jones are back in the Derby with the colt Friesan Fire.

Fiction

There is Walter Farley's book about a filly training for Kentucky Derby in The Black Stallion's Filly.


Blanche Chenry Perrin's Born To Run also centers around a filly's pursuit of the classic.


And there is an entry in the Thoroughbred series by Joanna Campbell, Wonder's First Race. Other Kentucky Derby children's fiction includes Kentucky Derby Winner by Isabel McLennan McMeekin (1949) about the first Derby, and Old Bones, The Wonder Horse by Mildred Mastin Pace (1955) about Exterminator, the unlikely winner of the 1918 Derby.


The latter book, illustrated by Wesley Dennis, is a very nice story of a classic underdog, and much more appealing in a way than the similar Seabiscuit story.