Product Description

Michael Korda's "Horse People is the story -- sometimes hilariously funny, sometimes sad and moving, always shrewdly observed -- of a lifetime love affair with horses, and about the bonds that have linked humans with horses for more than ten thousand years. It is filled with intimate portraits of the kind of people, rich or poor, Eastern or Western, famous or humble, whose lives continue to revolve around the horse.

How is it that the horse, neither a pet nor, strictly speaking, a working animal, has managed to survive and even thrive in the modern world, and whence comes our fascination for this creature, which is at once fragile and immensely strong, docile yet amazingly swift, friendly but still at heart wild?

Korda has spent his entire life around people who love horses -- in fact he met his wife, Margaret, while they were both riding in New York's Central Park. His book is a loving tribute to a shared obsession that takes the reader far afield, whether it's foxhunting in Virginia, the rodeo in Madison Square Garden, the world of competitive riding, or the simple enjoyment of a daily, early-morning ride in the country.

Indeed, many of the "characters" in his book -- which, like the works of the great nineteenth-century British sporting novelistSurtees, whom Korda so admires, is as much about horsesas "horse people" -- are the horses he (and Margaret) have owned, loved, ridden, and sometimes lost, to old age or disease, over the years. Readers who love horses will appreciate the often touching portraits of such animals as Tabasco, Margaret's elderly Thoroughbred, whom she rescued from life as a hack in Central Park; True Grit, the strong-minded mare who hated joggersand dogs; Hustle, the kindly gentleman of a quarterhorse who never put a foot wrong, even when he lost one eye to cancer; and Margaret's favorite, Nebraska, an Appaloosa mare (nicknamed "Miss Braveheart") who went on to win innumerable medals, ribbons, and awards, and whose untimely death is told in one of the most poignant scenes in the book.

It is also about many people, from prisoners who rehabilitate broken-down racehorses to famous riders (such as William Steinkraus, who rode in five Olympics and won four medals, including the individual gold in Mexico City in 1968), farriers, vets, horse dealers of all kinds, and little girls with their ponies.

Horses have a way of taking over one's life, and Horse People is the story of that obsession -- of people who love horses, or know horses, or make their living from horses, or who just plain can't imagine what life would be like without horses.

Korda is an unparalleled storyteller, and his book is intensely personal and seductive, a joy for everyone who loves horses -- though even those who have never ridden will be happy to saddle up and follow him through the world of horses, horse people, and the riding life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #939095 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 367 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Korda (Country Matters; Charmed Lives) recounts in his trademark affable style a growing involvement over decades with horses and the people who ride them. Beginning with his youth, and following with his reconnection to the horse world when he takes his son to lessons, Korda relates how horses changed his life: he met his current wife, Margaret, at New York City's Claremont Riding Academy, and eventually they purchased a home in Dutchess County with grounds to accommodate a growing number of horses. In one hilarious episode, Korda, the editor-in-chief at Simon & Schuster, visits an author in Middleburg, Va., and finds himself, unprepared, on a foxhunting horse jumping over walls and into backyards. He begins to analyze the symbolism of horses ("the horse stood... for social superiority, mobility, and not getting your feet wet and muddy like ordinary folk"), but this meditation is an exception, as Korda favors the anecdote and the caricature. There are rather too many "movers and shakers" for this book to live up to the diversity implied by its title, and while he briefly raises moral questions (about foxhunting, for example), he largely ignores the sociopolitical and emotional aspects of the horse-human relationship. He takes his reader on the occasional jaunt through less tony neighborhoods (with a veterinarian in Rhinebeck, N.Y.; to a rodeo in Archer City, Tex., with Larry McMurtry; and to a correctional facility's horse farm), but he tends to focus on places like Southlands, a privately owned facility in Dutchess County. While the book is more a series of vignettes than a full narrative, Korda's humor will be a delight to anyone who loves the world of riding.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
One mark of a good writer is to engage readers on a topic in which they have no inherent interest. This is what Korda, editor-in-chief at Simon & Schuster and author of several popular memoirs, does here with horses and horse riding. For, although the publicity copy that accompanies the book earnestly gives numbers on how many people ride, the fact remains that the horse world, primarily of New York, is not on most readers' radar screens. So Korda draws us in slowly with stories about the persnickety folks who populate that world and what it feels like to be astride so powerful an animal and what it feels like to fall off. That one of the earlier stories in the book is the one about how he began an affair with the woman who was to become his second wife doesn't hurt when it comes to keeping readers intrigued. But it is the horses who are the stars of the story; certainly they are more appealing than the many wealthy, oblivious people who dominate the horsey crowd. Korda wisely casts himself as an Everyman in this rarefied world, sharing an intense camaraderie with other riders but, nonetheless, more knowing than them and certainly friendlier. As in his previous book, Country Matters (2001), this is rather self-indulgently illustrated with Korda's pencil drawings. In fact, the whole book is a bit self-indulgent; the trick here is that you barely notice. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
“Characteristically amusing...[full of] exploits, peculiarities and foibles [that] make delicious anecdotal material.” (New York Times Book Review )