The Horse That Had Everything (1965)

The Horse That Had Everything
Newlin B. Wildes, il. Albert Micale
1966, Rand McNally & Company, American Education Publications


"Animals, animals," Kink said morosely. "The halt and the lame. They always seem to be with us."

Widower Kink Jonathan, an artist with a growing reputation, has chosen to live in rural Vermont with his 14-year-old son Rick, and they've gradually accumulated an assortment of animals. But Rick loves horses, and is a regular fixture at their neighbor's racing farm, where he forms an attachment to the crooked foal of the mare Never Fear. When the farm's cold-blooded owner, Slade Corcoran, decides to kill the crippled foal, Rick successfully begs him for another chance.

Rick raises the colt, who he eventually dubs Sans Peur, and with loving care and exercise the crooked leg straightens. And as the colt grows bigger and stronger and faster, the pressure mounts for Rick to turn his backyard pet into a racehorse.

This books holds an entertaining if typical premise, but is spoiled by a lack of pace. Wildes's writing is good enough piece by piece, with convincing action and a nice writing style -

Suzi took the saddle and bridle off Ulysses. He and the colt exchanged sniffs and got along, plucking grass side by side. They knew each other.

April is not the best month in Vermont. It often snows, the trees are still gaunt skeletons, the mud is not always gone. Nevertheless, there is promise of better things. Some days are, as the farmers' wives say, like a good apple pie: "warm in the middle and crisp around the edges." Cows are rough-coated in barnyards. Horses are shaggy, wandering in the fields searching for early blades of grass.


- but it doesn't have a natural flow. Scenes either inch along or jump sharply. Individual scenes are quite strong, but only for very brief moments and then the action lurches again. The major weakness, however, is the underlining of the major plot points instead of letting the reader infer them from the writing, which actually does a very good job if the author had only trusted it.

There are also two tedious minor plots in the growing awareness of the maturing Rick that neighbor Suzi isn't just an inferior girl anymore but a Girl, and the sometimes grating comparison between the big Thoroughbred San and Suzi's short, shaggy Morgan.

Note:
I read the book during this year's epic snowstorm, and seized on this bit -

Whenever there was a thaw and the snow became heavy and apt to cake on the colt's feet, Rick would rub butter all over the inside of San's hoofs to keep the snow from balling up there and twisting an ankle. "Darn expensive way to keep a horse's feet snow-free," Kink grumbled, when Rick disappeared with another quarter pound.

- to try with my dog, who also suffers snow buildup on walks. It works, but there are drawbacks. One, the dog clearly thinks you're mentally unstable for rubbing a stick of butter on her paws. Two, you end up taking a walk with hands coated in butter, which is great for dry winter skin but not so great for the general health of your mittens or your own sense of neatness. Three, it wears off fast, particularly if your dog discovers that her feet now taste great.


Equines and others
Ulysses S. Grant - Morgan gelding
Never Fear - grey Thoroughbred mare
Mon Oncle - Thoroughbred stallion
Sans Peur - grey Thoroughbred colt
Times Three - bay Thoroughbred colt
Abraham - donkey
Thomas Jefferson "TJ" Tibbs - large tiger cat
Albert - Plymouth Rock rooster

Author
The New England-based Wildes worked for Photoplay and then joined Curtis Publishing at their Boston office in 1937. The 1942 Gene Autry western Heart Of The Rio Grande was based on one of his stories.

Other Books
The Best Summer (1965)

Short Stories - horse
"Young Man On The Way Up" in Wildfire, The Red Stallion and Other Great Horse Stories

Short Stories - various
The Saturday Evening Post, May 20, 1944 - "Gold In Your Backyard"
Companion, July 1945 - "Little Guy"
Companion, June 1946 - "Crazy Like A Fox"
Liberty, September 1947
Colliers, September 5, 1936 - "Foot In The Door"
Ladies Home Journal, April, 1946 - "A Matter Of Style"
"Powderpuf" - football

Illustrator - Albert Micale
(1913-1993)
An artist who specialized in comics, particularly Westerns, Micale's versions of Roy Rogers adventures are some of the most sought after by collectors. He also illustrated children's nonfiction, and some fiction.

Other horse-related books
The Best Summer by Newlin B. Wildes (1964)
The Capture Of West Wind by Rutherford B. Montgomery (1962)
Trouble At Paintrock: A Penny Of Paintrock Mystery by Jane and Paul Annixter

And because we mentioned Roy...
Trigger, the palomino stallion who was Roy's equine pardner, was (along with the singing cowboy's German Shepherd Dog, Bullet) stuffed after death. The two were auctioned off this summer, along with Dale Evan's horse Buttermilk and Trigger backup Little Trigger. Trigger and Bullet ended up with RFD-TV. The Nebraska-based cable network is named after the old U.S. Postal Service designation for rural addresses - Rural Free Delivery - and specializes in rural programming, from cattle auctions to bluegrass to Hee Haw. The two are now on tour to various appropriately themed events. RFD-TV has also revived a kids' fan club from the old Roy Rogers television show, the Roy Rogers Riders Club, which is unbearably bittersweet.

The Publisher
American Education Publication was a new one to me, so I googled. Apparently, it was the publisher of the school newspapers My Weekly Reader and Current Events, as well as other educational work, and owned by Wesleyan University Press until Xerox bought it in 1965. They changed its name to Xerox Education Publications in 1972.

Links
Kiddie Matinees (for the AEP info)
Weekly Reader
A list of Wilds's short stories
Comic Creator about Albert Micale
Luxist about the auction of Trigger and Bullet
RFD's Happy Trails Tour
RFD-TV

The Blue Runner
Barlow Meyers, il. Bill Wickham (cover)
1960, The Westminster Press

Outside on the platform, some greeted friends, others went immediately to cars or walked away up the street. Suddenly Mike was desperately lonely. A hard lump knotted in his throat. He had known the feeling frequently since his grandmother's death three months ago, but this was like a blow. He almost turned toward the station to buy a ticket back to that small town in New York.

Mike has been taking care of his ailing grandmother and working part-time at a riding stable through his years in high school. Now that he's graduated and his guardian has died, Mike is in Wyoming to find his father, Matt Illif, who came West years earlier to start the Pigeon Track ranch. But Mike's too stubborn and too wary to simply show up at his dad's ranch. Using his middle name as a last name, he gets himself hired on at the Pigeon Track as Mike Worth, determined to prove himself to his unsuspecting father.

Small flaw with the plan; other people. Matt has remarried and has another child, a slightly younger son named Kelly, and there are unspoken tensions in the ranch that quickly becomes Mike's problem. As the dude struggles to become a cowboy and survive the mysterious problems of the family he debates joining, he's also drawn into the dilemma of the wild horse herd that roams the area. A battle between the reigning stallion and his son, two identical blue roans...

With a whistle that resounded off the mesa sides, he cut in behind the mare, and the young stallion slid to a stop and faced his adversary. He was not going to run this time. He held his stance, rear feet separated and braced a little, so that they pushed him forward like a boxer waiting to have the fight brought to him, one forefoot raised in readiness to leap, strike or sidestep. His flat ears were hidden in his mane, his neck outstretched until the great cords showed like ropes deep in his shoulders.

... leads to the younger, less experienced and more daring horse leading his band of mares deeper into Illif's land. The angry rancher hires a mustang killer to eliminate the problem. Mike, younger and more romantic, hates to see the end of the horse, and is faced with defying his father almost as soon as he's met him or letting the horse die.

A cowboy book more than a horse book, although the last chapters do put Mike and the roan together in a partnership that ought to satisfy even the most ardent Pony Clubber. The writing is good, the plotting excellent and the characters are believable.

Other books by Author
Last Of The Wild Stallions (1949)
Tumbleweed (1952)
Fireball (1956)

About the Author
1902-?
Gertrude Barlow Meyers wrote several westerns for children, and several books that were related to popular television programs of the era - The Lawrence Welk Show, The Mickey Mouse Club, and Have Gun, Will Travel. A graduate of Illinois Wesleyan University and Illinois State Normal University, with an M.A. from the University of Chicago, Meyers was a reporter in Detroit before becoming a teacher.

Websites
A website tracking people named Barlow lists her with some book jackets of her other work.

The Lord Mayor's Show
Vian Smith, il. Sam Savitt (beautiful cover painting)
1969, Doubleday and Company

All you need is luck, she thought. The luck to have good horses, wealthy owners, honest jockeys, able staff; the luck to train so many winners you become 'fashionable.'

The Duncan family believes in luck, as befits a family whose business is training racehorses. Unfortunately, all their luck has been bad lately. Jennifer Duncan is old enough to realize how near to disaster her beloved, honest father has dragged his family. When the troubled racehorse The Lord Mayor puts Danny Duncan in the hospital for an extended time, Jennny forms an alliance with her estranged older brother Graham, to rescue the farm, Punchards Mill. He's reluctant, but unable to shake his responsibility. Standing firmly in the way is the pain and resentment of the displaced Danny Duncan, torn loyalties of farm hand (and would-be boyfriend to Jenny) Ben, and, most crucially, the distrust of youngest child Andrew, who loves The Lord Mayor and resents his older brother.

The very English style, low on dialogue and rich in shifting points of view and interior monologue, moves the story along at a good clip while keeping the focus on the characters, not the action. Even the animals' perspectives are used:

The gray reached the edge of the ramp and looked up, summoning his courage for an ascent which seemed long and steep. He knew he was leaving Punchards Mill. He looked around at the heads of other horses, his nostrils flaring in the beginning of a nucker. He'd never become one of them, never a bonafide racehorse. A year ago he had come among them nervously and had taken weeks to settle. Now he didn't want to leave. His glance to older horses had appeal in it.

But the central struggle is between Graham, self-exiled from the family farm after a disasterous race, and torn still between his fledgling life in London and his old, complicated family life in the West Country, and the ruined racehorse The Lord Mayor. Years before, Graham was Danny's future champion jockey, but the teenager had been fed up with his father's honest, err-on-the-side-of-the-horse approach to winning and, knowing his family desperately needed a win, rode a race that fried The Lord Mayor's mind. The horse still loathes Graham, who see Andrew's bond with the outlaw as exactly what it is; a statemment of 'forget Graham, I can be the family hero.'

Despite the focus on the male power struggle, it's Jennifer who the book returns to again and again, using her as the central stand-in for the reader. She has her own plots - a love triangle with Ben and a wealthy amateur rider, Miles, who becomes entangled in the redemption of The Lord Mayor.

Horses
The Lord Mayor - bay gelding
Fire Steward - old racehorse
Cavalier Rustic - racehorse
Prudent Polly - racehorse
Galvanic - racehorse
Miscreant - racehorse

Cover
Beautiful painting by Sam Savitt of a bay racehorse being led by a boy.

About the Author
1919-1969
Smith's fondness for Dartmoor shows in most of his books, and more information about his life and non-horsey books can be found on the Widecombe-In-The-Moor website
http://www.widecombe-in-the-moor.com/history/minutes/2004/writer_vian_smith.php

Other Books by Author
Several books were published under different titles in the UK and US

Pride Of The Moor (Question Mark in UK) (1961)
Martin Rides The Moor (1964)
Green Heart (1964)
A Second Chance (The Horses of Petrock in UK) (1965)
Tall And Proud (King Sam in UK) (1965)
Come Down The Mountain (1967)
The Minstrel Boy (1970)

Nonfiction
A Horse Called Freddie (1967)
Point To Point (1968)
The Grand National (1969)
Horses In The Green Valley (Parade Of Horses in UK) (1970)

Some of his non-horsey books
Song Of The Unsung: A Story of the Sappers (1945)
Candles To The Dawn (1946)
Genesis Down (1963)
The First Thunder (1965)
Moon In The River (1969)
The Wind Blows Free
Portrait Of Dartmoor