Glory's Rival (Thoroughbred Series #18) [Mass Market Paperback]

Joanna Campbell (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up

When Cindy discovers that Samantha is also entering her horse the Breeders' Cup Classic, she must decide if keeping a friendship is more important than winning the biggest race ever.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Joanna Campbell appears here with her six-year-old Thoroughbred, Meyersville Magic, known around the barn as CC. He's a son of Horatius out of Northwich by Timothy's Champ and is owned by Cathy Day. Formerly trained for racing, he is now being trained for eventing. Last Year he was the Maine Entry Level Champion in Combined Training.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins (December 11, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061063983
• ISBN-13: 978-0061063985
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,018,599 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Glory Sucks!, November 27, 2004

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Glory's Rival (Thoroughbred Series #18) (Mass Market Paperback)

WORST EVER! Why couldn't have Shining entered and won!? And what's with Glory beating Seartarit's record! Only Man O' War could have done that! Cindy is a BRAT! I wish they would just lose. And what's with the horses!! I mean, the only horses that I've liked are High Jinx, Perfect Image, Mr.Wonderful, Storm's Ransom, and Shining!!!!!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars what a waste of money., January 3, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Glory's Rival (Thoroughbred Series #18) (Mass Market Paperback)

This book sucked. I wish i never read it. Cindy is so hooked on winning it just gets boring. she sometimes makes smantha and other people close to her sound like criminals. I hate cindy. And the way she refers to Ashleighs horses as "her's". Thoroughbred books were so much better when Joanna Campbell wrote them. They all fell apart after #12. And with glory winning the Breeders cup classic by 31 lenghts i don't think so! They should of let a decent horse like pride win it by that much. don't buy this book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A disgrace to the beautiful series Campbell created, March 24, 2003

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Glory's Rival (Thoroughbred Series #18) (Mass Market Paperback)

Joanna Campbell, creator of the Thoroughbred series, wrote the books from #1-14, then let Karen Bentley take over starting with #15, Glory's Triumph. Bentley isn't a BAD writer. She knows which end of the horse is up and she knows something about training, which is a plus. However, it's her whole attitude about the series that really starts to drag it down. We see less of the loving camaraderie between girls and their horses, and less of the sneaky evil villain-ry of the younger Townsends, Brad and Lavinia. Glory's Rival is sugar-coated and badly held up, but hey, most of the other books in this sector (Bentley wrote #15-23, as well as two super editions, Ashleigh's Hope and Samantha's Journey) are too.

Glory's Rival, in a nutshell, is all about Cindy's fears that her horse, March to Glory, will race against her adopted sister's horse, Shining, in the Breeder's Cup Classic. Cindy's competitive attitude threatens to destroy her relationship with Samantha. In the end it's all peachy anyway, since Glory wins the Classic and Shining wins the Distaff, which is the race for fillies and mares.

I don't really care that much that Whitebrook took a double victory on Breeder's Cup day, though I do think it's unrealistic. (So many horses race. How likely is it, really, that one farm will produce two winners on Breeder's Cup day? For that matter, many horses don't make it to the stakes at all.) And I don't care all that much about Cindy's bad attitude, since it only gets worse as the series goes on. (Campbell made a great start with the possibility of lots of backstory, but Bentley mostly chose to ignore her orphaned past.) I felt like the entire plot was trivial. Bentley doesn't get close enough to the characters for us to really care whether Glory wins or loses or breaks his leg. No, scratch that - it's not GLORY we don't care about. He's a nice horse. It's CINDY.

The "rivalry" between Shining and Glory is nothing like the well-drawn, fast-paced, makes-your-blood-boil competition between Townsend Prince and Ashleigh's Wonder, back when Ashleigh Griffen was a girl. Brad Townsend was a formidable foe because he was cutthroat and would go to dirty lengths to win, but he did actually care very much about the Prince. Cindy, on the other hand, doesn't seem to care all that much about Glory; she just wants to win. It feels shallow because Bentley doesn't write with conviction.

And while we're on the subject of the Townsends, this newfound sweet-and-light love between the Whitebrook group and the Townsends is close to sickening. Brad and Lavinia Townsend have always been most interesting when they act as BELIEVABLE rivals. Bentley didn't know how to write them as believable rivals - people who pull the dirtiest tricks that we, the readers, see right through but never quite come to light to the racing officials - so she ended all rivalry and competition between them.

And getting to the 31 lengths thing - yes, I suppose it's possible for a horse to win a race by 31 lengths. Sure. I buy that. I do NOT, however, buy the fact that it's the same number of lengths that Secretariat set a record with. That's sacrilegious. For goodness sakes, make it 29 lengths, make it 30, but not 31.