The One Dollar Horse, by Lauren St John Junior Fiction
This is not a new title, but the first in a trilogy about
teenager Casey Blue, volunteer at a no-frills riding school in London’s East
End. Casey lives in a scruffy high-rise
apartment with her beloved Dad, an ex-burglar who has zero luck finding a job
after a stint inside. Her mother died
when she was two, so her Dad is everything to her – until fate steps in one day
and she and her father rescue an ill and traumatised horse that has escaped
from the local knacker’s yard: from then
on it is Casey’s mission to bring the dying animal back to good health – and
back to life, a job much easier to imagine than to achieve.
Fortunately, Casey has some firm friends in the tiny
horsey fraternity in the East End, including Mrs Smith, an elderly lady who
once had a glittering career in Dressage and Show Jumping; Mrs Smith is a woman who understands big
dreams and how to realise them, having had huge success herself. She knows that Casey and the One Dollar horse
(so named because Casey’s dad found an American dollar on the day they rescued
him – it was all he had in his wallet, so the knacker accepted it!) have a
special, loving bond that occurs very seldom:
if they are coached correctly, they could be eventing stars – especially
at Badminton, the biggest prize of all.
Casey’s efforts to attain the standard required to reach
Badminton hit many snags on the way, not least rivalry and derision from other
competitors; she finds that there are
few highs and lots of lows in her efforts to lift her game, and just when all
finally seems attainable, her father betrays her by selling her horse to the
father of her rival competitor. How
Casey overcomes these massive barriers to the success of her dreams is told
with humour, verve and a true sense of suspense by Ms St John, who writes like
she’s been there, done that on every page:
great stuff. FIVE STARS.
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