There Was A Horse
Sam Savitt, author and illustrator
1961, The Dial Press

The last rays of the late March sun slanted across the barnyard, spotlighting the horses bunched together in the paddock. Suddenly the gray's head came up, turning toward my departing truck. There was a bold, defiant look about him, and for one brief instant the sight of the gray horse against the red barn in the brilliant sunlight dazzled my eyes and grabbed my foot, pushing it down hard on the brake.

Bill buys the skinny gray horse intending to remake him as a hunter and sell for a profit to help his older brother, a dairy farmer. His own future is uncertain; about to graduate high school, a self-taught horse nut who doesn't know what he's going to do with his life. The big gray, though, resists the re-training plan, going completely out of control in the field. He's too wild for hunting and too fast for the show ring, and Bill's about to pack it in when Drake, a new hired man, recognizes the big Thoroughbred. Steelman was a steeplechaser who overturned and nearly wrecked himself in the Maryland Hunt Cup a few years ago. Drake agrees to undertake training Bill and Steelman to compete in this year's Cup. While Steelman's almost ready, Bill's seat-of-his-pants riding style and youthful resilience are clearly not going to be enough to get them through one of the world's most grueling races.

Sam Savitt wrote few books compared to the ones he illustrated, but those few were lovely horsey books. He never seemed at home with female characters, so the near total lack of them in this book is a strength, in a sense, though of course in another sense it's pathetic. The male characters are solid. Bill is one-note as an obsessed teenaged boy can be, and as the narration comes from him, it's almost all about the horse. Elder brother Chris and mentor Drake appear as important figures which the narrator barely understands till the end of the book. The action is realistic and yet heroic; most believable and painful is the loss of nerve Bill experiences after a bad fall:

Over the past three years the gray horse had given me a pretty rough time - no doubt about that. I had hit the ground, bounced back and hit the ground again, and aside from bruised bones and charlie-horsed muscles, never gave it a second thought. But with each successive jolt a little more heart was knocked out and always a little less returned.

And who but Sam Savitt would lovingly include a drawing of the race course? I've never watched the Cup, but I aspire to drive down there some day.

Note:
There Was A Horse - Steelman was owned by a Mr. Whitcomb in the past; Phantom, Son Of the Gray Ghost - a Mr. Whitcomb is refered to as the former employer of a Joe Tanner, former head of Whitcomb's stables.

Themes
Abuse
Rescue
Foxhunting

Other Books by Author
Vicki And The Black Horse
Vicki And The Brown Mare
Midnight, Champion Bucking Horse
Wild Horse Running

Panky In The Saddle
Nancy Saxon, il. Charles Saxon
1984

It was a long way to the ground, and I wasn't in control anymore. I wondered if there was any truth to the saying that horses can smell fear. It was one of those things you couldn't ask. It would sound dumb.

Frances "Panky" Mooney loves William, the small black gelding who has exasperated everyone at the Fox Run Hunt Club in a wealthy part of Connecticut, and worries that she'll never learn to ride as well as her friends.

The simple style and realistic first-person narration by the child heroine are probably perfect for an uncertain or beginner reader. The length (145 pages) and extended ruminations on parental finances, though, seem to place it out of that category. The few illustrations are hit or miss, some being wonderfully spot-on, some beautifully dreamy and a few just awkward.




Also awkward are the attempts to make this more than just a horse book - the bits about her family's finances are unappealing and ultimately unbelievable, and the predictable plot about her idol turning out to have feet of kleptomaniac clay was a snooze.

I pretended to concentrate on making William back up. I sawed the reins left and right in turn, the way I'd seen Katie do. William responded with a few half-hearted bucks. Then he fell back on the tried-and-true William formula. When in doubt, run. We went half the ring before I got him back to a walk.

I did like the realistic portrayal of going from dreamy love to a realization that there is an element of basic animal management to riding, as well as the faithful love for horses that the heroine shows, and the fact that her obsession is out of the blue, of no reasonable origin. I loathed her constant refrain about being fat, and thought the harping on how superior training is to buying a 'made' horse was a bit tiring.

Other Books
Panky and William (precedes this book)
Panky In Love

Themes
Horse Show
Abuse
Rescue
Bourgie Parents

Ponies Of Mykillengi
Lonzo Anderson, il. Adrienne Adams
1966, Charles Scribner's Sons

After the long winter, a spring thaw brings new life to the Icelandic farm Mykillengi. Rauf and Egli take their ponies out for a ride in the warming air, and become trapped when an earthquake opens a cracks in the earth between them and home. To make mattes worse, Egli's pony is about to foal.

A picture book with warm, soft paintings of shaggy Icelandic ponies and their children struggling across a dark, snowy plain to find home. Lovely, simply illustrations and an exciting plot.

The ponies, coated with winter fur, have a shelter open to the south, closed off from the cold north wind. There they wait out the winter storms, munching the dried fish-heads the children have given them because the last of the hay is gone

Fish heads!

Another in a long list of books where the boy is of course the leader and there is a strict gender split with boys riding geldings and girls riding mares. And this simultaneously graphic and rosy picture of the mare's feelings about foaling - It is like the beating of her heart, but much stronger, slower - deeply exciting and satisfying - is a bit much.

Ponies
Hekla - grey Icelandic pony with white mane and tail (name means 'volcano')
Jokull - red roan Icelandic pony (name means 'glacier')

Themes

As you may be able to tell, this is a slightly tongue-in-cheek list. It is not usually meant to be a serious criticism of a book, just a comment on whatever story ideas it shares with others.

Explaining the Themes - Horse-specific
Horse Show - clearly, a horse show figures large at some point

Abuse - a horse is abused or is said to be a victim of past abuse

Rescue - a horse is removed from abuse or neglect, or rehabbed from bad habits stemming from abuse or neglect

OHDEARGODITSPINTO!!!!! - Daddy, where is my chestnut Thoroughbred and is that a blue eye? (outmoded currently, but v. popular in older books)

But I Wanted To Ride Western/Jumpers/etc. - why won't this %#&@$ horse learn to jump/race barrels/do dressage/etc.?????

Why did my parents buy me a horse? - I wanted a charm bracelet for Christmas, not a farm animal

Born Free! Free as the wind blows.... - yes, me and my mustang stallion will live happily ever after in the arroyo with the owl and the coyote

Pony contest - so I bought 16 quadrillion boxes of soap and sent in all the lids and now I'm hanging out by the mailbox harassing the USPS for a confirmation letter

Mare swap - Child is craaaaazy about mare; mare gives birth; child and author forget mare entirely

Critter death - I stood up, leaving Horsie's still body behind, and Pa grasped my shoulder; I had left childhood behind

Explaining the Themes - General
Missing Daddy - a father is MIA

Boho Parents - mom's a sculptor, dad's a writer, and it's ever so likely we all live in a crumbling mansion or in New York

Bourgie Parents - mum's worried about the servants, daddy's a Type A, and it's all so stressful

My Parents Aren't So Bad, After All - I matured and saw them as fragile and imperfect people who finally realized I was right

Sibling Jealousy - why am I not just like my sibling, God?

I'm a TROUBLED teen (but not like, you know, on heroin) - I'm moody, I have Problems, and it's all adorable

Where's that footman? - we're so rich our houses have houses

GHOSTS!!! - there may be a wee bit of the supernatural in here somewhere

Magic Gardens - time travel, mist and other cool things involving nature

Bulldozers on the Prowl - development threatens the horses

Christian/Religious - Jesus, is it ok to pray that I win the pony championship?

Dead Elder - Gosh, the friendship I had with old lady Agatha was the most special summer of my life, and she taught me all about horses and how to forgive myself for my brother's accidental death. And she died right around the time the plot needed a lift. Sweet.

Summer Pony (Jean Slaughter Doty, 1973)

When Ginny Anderson convinces her parents to lease her a pony for the summer, she never expects that her dream horse will be so - real. The first shock is the decrepit Sweetbriar Pony Farm, where her loving but unhorsey parents take her to select a pony. The second is the pony, a skinny pinto mare with mismatched eyes and a mind of her own. The third is the reality of caring for an animal who can die from overeating and fly into a lethal panic over a falling leaf. But as the Andersons learn about stable management and Ginny learns to ride, the summer becomes fun, especially when Ginny makes friends with a neighbor who also rides.

Summer Pony is impressive in its handling of a typical situation - a horsey child with unhorsey parents, and the problems that creates - in a solid, realistic manner that manages to be interesting and involving without resorting to the more spectacular adventures that many horse book rely upon. True, Ginny does conveniently makes friends with a wealthy, horsey neighbor girl whose family has an Irish stableman who is a ready source of information and help. But without a few useful coincidences, the heroes of pony books would be stuck doing what we did as kids - reading library books on the porch while wishing we had ponies.

Information-wise, Summer Pony is one of those that gives the hungry wannabe horse owner good food. Ginny's shown puzzling out how to bridle her new pony, learning the difference between bits, and other fascinating-to-horse-people arcana. Catnip.



Illustrator:
There is no separating this book from its illustrator. Sam Savitt's cover alone makes the book sing. The interior drawings are as alluring. Savitt's warm, safe style suits this book perfectly, and it is a beautiful marriage. The most recent edition unfortunately replaced Savitt's realistic cover painting with a cartoonish watercolor.

Other books by the author:
Winter Pony (sequel)
The Crumb
The Monday Horses
Can I Get There By Candlelight?
Yesterday’s Horses
If Wishes Were Horses
The Valley Of The Ponies
Dark Horse