“The thing is this,” said Merrylegs. “Ginger has a bad habit of biting and snapping; that is why they call her Ginger, and when she was in the loose box she used to snap very much. One day she bit James in the arm and made it bleed, and so Miss Flora and Miss Jessie, …
Category Archives: Black Beauty
Talking on Behalf of Horses
I’ve been thinking lately about horses and ventriloquy. I want to write something about the talking horses of literature, from Houyhnhnms to Dick, the Little Poney, Tolstoy’s Kholstomer and Black Beauty. Why do so many authors want to give a voice to horses? What do we use them to say about horses, humans and the …
How Black Beauty Changed The Way We See Horses
A quick treat on NPR – Jane Smiley and others on Black Beauty. It’s a shame they didn’t dig a little deeper as Beauty certainly wasn’t the first equine autobiography, and what’s more, the bearing rein was never abolished and remains legal…
Women, Horses and World War One
(Look on this as a kind of missing chapter from If Wishes Were Horses.) Part two of this post will be available here from 2nd June 2014. When I wrote If Wishes Were Horses I tried to take the story of girls and ponies from Lascaux to My Little Pony as neatly as I could. …
If Wishes Were Horses: Saving Beauty
Ann Lindo’s Horse Trust, Tettenhall Horse Sanctuary, the Horse Rescue Fund and World Horse Welfare are just some of Britain’s great horse rescues. I have to put in a special shout out for the Horse Rescue Fund. Established in the 1960s by a family who wanted to make a difference, they are part of the …
Feeling Your Oats?
When I visited Redwings Horse Sanctuary they told me they kept Weetabix to feed to colicky horses. I don’t think this is what they had in mind… Non-UK readers might need to watch the original 1970s TV credits, repeatedly, to get the joke, or just because it’s guaranteed to make you misty-eyed. This is my …
Narrative Threads
Jane Badger brings news of Penguin’s new cover for Black Beauty, by embroiderer Jillian Tamaki, and gosh it is beautiful. See photos on Jillian’s blog here, and, enlarged, here.
Avert Your Eyes, Anna Sewell
Round Up
Rodeo mules in San Antonio swan dive into water tanks to entertain the paying public. “What’s wrong with a mule diving into a cold pool on a hot day?” asks their trainer. Where to start? A starved, dying horse is dumped in an LA street. Police question locals to find the owners. NFL player Jared …
Galloping Home (at 5am, off your gourd)
The theme from TV’s Black Beauty re-cast as a trance anthem with added whinnies. God it’s marvellous.