Horse Memoir

This is a story about leaving home to chase a dream that was so deep in my bones I couldn’t quit, even when it nearly killed me. It’s about the horse who held my heart suddenly disappearing. It’s about love finding me when I least expected it. And it’s about learning to trust a God who gives and takes away.

Frankel was born on 11th February 2008, with four white socks and a blaze, from impressive equine lines on both his parents’ sides. Simon Cooper revisits the whole of the horse’s life, giving listeners an inside tour of the calm oasis that is life on a stud farm, where a foal will live with his mother for the first year of his life. Next, the atmosphere of heady possibility that marks the early days of training. Roadwork. Gallops. Trials. Turning raw potential into something more. Frankel begins to set himself apart.

This is the memoir of an ordinary horse-girl. Fifty years of riding schools, borrowed horses and long lost dreamscapes. Fifty years of a passion which has seen considerable changes from the gradual demise of the public riding school, to the loss of access to safe bridleways. But My Life in Horses is not filled with sad nostalgia, it’s also a kaleidoscope of hope and inspiration. From the dappled sunlit lanes of Cheshire to the rugged mountains of North Wales, and beyond.

One evening late in his life, veteran sportswriter Mike Sullivan was asked by his son what he remembered best from his three decades in the press box. The answer came as a surprise. "I was at Secretariat's Derby, in '73. That was...just beauty, you know?" John Jeremiah Sullivan didn't know, not really - but he spent two years finding out, journeying from prehistoric caves to the Kentucky Derby in pursuit of what Edwin Muir called "our long-lost archaic companionship" with the horse.

Hutton has now written a fascinating full biography of Sergeant Reckless, who earned two Purple Hearts for her heroic efforts, among other military decorations. Hutton has spoken with the marines who fought alongside Reckless and tells the complete and captivating tale of how a would-be Korean racehorse became one of the greatest Marine Corps wartime heroes. Sgt. Reckless brings the legend back to life more than half a century later.

Written by a fourth generation Morecambe Bay fisherman, this is a detailed and thought provoking record of hard work in an unforgiving and often dangerous environment, but is also a story of family, friendship, tight knit community and of joyful times. This highly readable and evocative history of a bygone era is full of amusing anecdotes, colourful characters, interesting facts and real life drama. Set along the beautiful coast and the villages of what was once North Lancashire, now part of Cumbria, this book is packed with photographs and illustrations which combine with the author's ...

Landing on the Anzio beachhead in February 1944, Phil is put in charge of an Ammunition Pioneer Platoon in the 3rd Infantry Division. Their job: deliver ammunition to the frontline foxholes—a dangerous assignment involving regular forays into No Man’s Land. As Phil fights his way up the Italian boot, into Southern France and across the Rhine River into Germany, he is caught up in some of the most intense combat ever. But it’s what happens in the final stages of the war and his homecoming that makes Phil’s story incredibly special and heartwarming.

Last Ride of the Iron Horse tells the tale of Lou Gehrig's final year in the Yankee lineup, as he dealt with early effects of the deadly disease ALS. For much of the 1938 season, Gehrig - dubbed the Iron Horse for his strength and reliability - struggled with slumps and a mystifying loss of power. Fans booed, and sportswriters called for him to be benched.

The horse Jim was known as Beautiful Jim Key from the moment he stepped into the American spotlight in 1897 at age eight until his death in 1912. This horse was beloved for his remarkable intelligence, cultivated by human kindness and patience. No less extraordinary was the man who trained Jim, Dr. William Key of Shelbyville, Tennessee, a former slave who in his life had seen horrific cruelty toward humans and animals. Bill Key was a self-schooled veterinarian and Black entrepreneur who refused to use force in any guise while breaking and training horses.

I’ll admit I’m a romantic and heroic. But to be honest, it’s not my fault: it’s the fault of all the horses I’ve ever known. In my romantic struggle for beauty in an unromantic mechanical age, my horses, simply by how they were, and how we looked, and how we were together, although no more than a tiny broadside against the ghost ship of mediocrity of this crazy age, were some kind of victory just by the fact that we still existed. Horses inspire courage against hopeless odds just by their courage and beauty.

It was a cool, quiet evening at Calumet Farm, where the most valuable racehorses—including the prolific stallion Alydar—had settled into their stalls for the evening. Alton Stone, filling in for the regular night watchman, completed his rounds at the barn. Although nothing seemed out of the ordinary, an inexplicable hunch led Stone to check on Alydar. What he found—a grievously injured horse with no discernable cause—jump-started one of the biggest mysteries to ever hit the horse racing world.

Gen. Larry Spencer, USAF (Ret.) was born and raised on the Horseshoe—a tough inner-city street in southeast Washington D.C. The Horseshoe was a hard neighborhood where fights were common, and the school systems were second-rate. The expectations of living in an all-Black neighborhood were to be good at sports while shunning academic prowess. That environment resulted in poor self-esteem and a bleak outlook for the future. Quite by chance, Spencer enlisted in the U.S. Air Force where he continued to struggle with the racial turmoil of the 1970s.

The untold story of generations of Middle Eastern freedom fighters—horsewomen who safeguarded an ancient breed of Caspian horse—and their efforts to defend their homelands from the Taliban and others seeking to destroy them, Book of Queens reaches back centuries to the Persian Empire and a woman disguised as a man, facing an invading army, protected only by light armor and the stallion she sat astride. Mahdavi draws a thread from past to present.

At the age of 19, Lara Prior-Palmer discovered a website devoted to "the world's longest, toughest horse race" - an annual competition of endurance and skill that involves dozens of riders racing a series of 25 wild ponies across 1,000 kilometers of Mongolian grassland. On a whim, she decided to enter the race. Riders often spend years preparing to compete in the Mongol Derby, and many fail to finish. Rough Magic captures the extraordinary story of one young woman who forged ahead, against all odds, to become the first female winner of this breathtaking race.

This memoir is the true, no holds barred story of my incredibly blessed, ridiculously messy life. If you’re looking for a fun, relaxing beach read, this isn’t it. This is more of a roller-coaster, “Good grief, what next?” kind of read. But I hope you’ll give it a chance because it’s definitely not boring, occasionally funny, and does have a wonderful, happy ending…eventually. Within the pages of this book you’ll find: Good Guys, Bad Guys, and Just Plain Monsters Abandonments by Disturbingly Imperfect Parents, and Adoptions by Nearly Perfect Parents Drug Addicts, Alcoholics, ...

In 1910, when Olaf F. Larson was born to tenant livestock and tobacco farmers in Rock County, Wisconsin, the original barn still stood on the property. It was filled with artifacts of an earlier time - an ox yoke, a grain cradle, a scythe used to cut hay by hand. But Larson came of age in a brave new world of modern inventions - tractors, trucks, combines, airplanes - that would change farming and rural life forever. When Horses Pulled the Plow is Larson's account of that rural life in the early 20th century.

"Back in the saddle" isn't just a cliché or a metaphor. For Crissi McDonald, it describes where she's spent four decades of her life, and a challenge she wasn't sure she'd still be able to meet. On an ordinary sunny afternoon in 2014, Crissi's world falls apart. Waking up in the hospital after a freak accident with her horse, the doctors tell her that a small bleed in her brain has stopped and that she's dodged brain surgery. As the news sinks in, she realizes the facade of her confidence has crumbled. She’s at a crossroads: either find ways to overcome the fear that now engulfs her or ...

At the start of this remarkable story of recovery, healing, and redemption, Ginger Gaffney answers a call to help retrain the troubled horses at an alternative prison ranch in New Mexico, a facility run entirely by the prisoners. The horses are scavenging through the dumpsters, kicking and running down the residents when they bring the trash out after meals. One horse is severely injured. The horses and residents arrive at the ranch broken in one way or many: the horses are defensive and terrified, while the residents, some battling addictions, are emotionally and physically shattered.

The dramatic true story of two brothers living parallel lives on either side of the US-Mexico border - and how their lives converged in a major criminal conspiracy.

For many outsiders, the word “ranching” conjures romantic images of riding on horseback through rolling grasslands while living and working against a backdrop of breathtaking mountain vistas. In this absorbing memoir of life in the Wyoming high country, Mary Budd Flitner offers a more authentic glimpse into the daily realities of ranch life - and what it takes to survive in the ranching world. Some of Flitner’s recollections are humorous and lighthearted. Others take a darker turn.