Horse People: Scenes from the Riding Life [Hardcover]

Michael Korda (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 21, 2003

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.

Editorial Reviews

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

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Harper; 1st edition (October 21, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0066212529
• ISBN-13: 978-0066212524
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,403,495 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michael Korda is the New York Times bestselling author of Horse People,
Country Matters, Ulysses S. Grant, Cat People, Journey to a Revolution, and Ike.
He lives with his wife, Margaret, in Dutchess County, New York.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Too rich for my blood., December 19, 2003

By 

Ridergirl (West Hollywood, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Horse People: Scenes from the Riding Life (Hardcover)

I bought this book based on a glowing review I'd read in the Los Angeles Times. Having grown up in NYC and, like Mr. Korda, ridden at both Claremont Stables in Central Park and Clove Lake Stables on Staten Island, I thought for sure this book would be chock full of places and experiences I could relate to. Boy, was I wrong. Aside from finding out that someone I dated in the early 70's is a friend of Mr. Korda's and is featured prominently in his book (that was pretty neat), I didn't learn much of anything except how the "other half" lives. A more appropriate title for this book would have been "Rich Horse People - Very Rich Horse People". Being a horse owner myself (with a relatively modest income), I had a hard time relating to the endless descriptions of Mr. Korda's wealthy acquaintances and their acres of horse property. He seems to be more interested in the people he's writing about than the relationship between those people and their horses. And what's with the little phrases en francais he tosses in every few pages and the occasional (dare I say it?) racist and condescending references to those less fortunate (i.e. referring to the employers of stable hands as their "betters")? All in all, a very disappointing book for me - so disappointing, in fact, that I quit after page 175 and sold my copy on Ebay. If you're looking for a great horse book, go read Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand or Horse Heaven by Jane Smiley. If you want to learn about rich people and their estates, there's always the A&E channel.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Should have been called "Me and My Beautiful Second Wife", March 29, 2004

By 

Kathryn (Wellington, FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Horse People: Scenes from the Riding Life (Hardcover)

I found this book to be a bore - written by a man who, once he leaves his wife and child for another married woman, spends the entire book knocking every single person he comes into contact with, save for himself and said second wife. Even his "friends" aren't safe from catty remarks, all of which serve to promote his fabulous second wife, who appears thoughout the book in pictures riding her various horses. Anyone who knows how to ride can clearly see she ain't all that she's cracked up to be according to her doting, emascualted husband. In fact, she hasn't even competed in the "high levels" Korda claims - she competes at very low levels, presumably so she can get lots and lots of ribbons and beat the "snooty little girls that only have horses because their parents pay for it." The text is sloppy - he repeats himself so many times I began to compare his differing descriptions of the same activity to see which was more outlandish. The book makes about as much sense as the piture of his wife, in her underwear, in the pasture, with her horses. It's a little weird, though it does explain why she sticks with him - he must foot the horse bills so she can stick with her true loves! I would suggest that anyone reading this book might not want to take lessons from Mr. Korda - his morals, as well as his skills as a horseman, are much exaggerated.

30 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars repetitive and self-indulgent, avoid, December 29, 2003

By 

K. M. Murphy (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Horse People: Scenes from the Riding Life (Hardcover)

The title of this book should have been: A Horse Person, Scenes from my Wife's Life. It centers around his second wife, Margaret, and her increasing involvement in 3 day eventing. While the eventing world certainly could be a great subject for a book, Korda's approach is basically to heap praise on his wife and her immediate circle of small-time riders and trainers in upstate New York. I can only guess that Korda's position as an editor at Simon & Shuster was the only reason it got published and well-reviewed.

His position may also explain the poor editing choices. His text is incredibly repetitive, with the same phrases about his wife, the cavalry, and statistics about horses found throughout the book.

The structure serves only to lead the reader on, as does the dust-jacket and most reviews I have seen. The first 75 pages or so are funny, with a personal account of fox-hunting and riding in New York city, at once self-deprecating and insightful, that I hoped would set the tone for the remainder of the text. After he met Margaret however, the whole thing goes in a downward-spiral for 200+ pages. It does perk up toward the end with his account of prisoners who take care of horses. Even this however, is short-sighted. While he condemns the owners of feed-lots who slaugter horses for food as "killers" he never proposes alternate solutions for the problems of excess supplies of thoroughbred horses. And who is he to off-handedly dismiss the cultural practices of countries who do choose to eat horse meat.

If you are looking for a book that mingles a personal narrative with the world of horses, I would suggest Elizabeth Mitchell's Three Strides Before the Wire. Horse People is definetly not a book for horse people, who will be annoyed, or those casually interested in the word of equestrian sports, who won't learn much.