Horses have lengthy been a beloved function of kids’s fiction. Black Beauty is a traditional that has made technology after technology of readers cry their eyes out over the poor remedy of horses within the Victorian period. National Velvet is an early instance of a fashionable “horse woman” ebook. Published within the Nineteen Thirties, it follows a teenage woman competing to win a horse racing competitors, a method that many later books would observe. My Friend Flicka, The Silver Brumby, and The Black Stallion are different traditional horse books which can be learn to today, and current tales similar to Horse Girl by Carrie Seim, War Horse by Michael Morpurgo, and The Starlight Stables Gang by Esme Higgs and Jo Cotterill present that tales exploring the connection between people and horses are all the time in style. Horse ladies — and horse-loving children of all genders — have all the time turned to fiction to feed their ardour for all issues equestrian.
I used to be a wannabe horse woman after I was little, though I used to be by no means excellent at it. I liked being round horses, however I used to be horrible at really driving them, regardless of a few years of driving classes. Nevertheless, horses have been a particular curiosity of mine for a very long time. I collected problems with Horse and Pony journal (a UK publication aimed toward tween horse ladies, which appears to have been put out to pasture today) and learn each horse-themed ebook I might get my palms on. My favourites have been the Jinny of Finmory Farm books, about a woman who rescues a lovely however temperamental horse, Shantih, and makes an attempt to nurture and rehabilitate her — though I had many others, together with countless collections of quick tales about misplaced ponies. My curiosity in horses handed after I bought into comics and Pokemon and grew up into the large nerd I’m immediately, however horse tales have been a large a part of my younger life.
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The “Typical” Horse Girl
I may not have been the very best or most devoted horse woman, however the picture of the “horse woman” in books did largely mirror me. The ladies within the horse tales I learn have been invariably white, middle- or upper-class, cishet, abled ladies, normally from close-knit and supportive households. Many of them have been a bit richer than me — whereas my household was in a position to pay for me to have occasional driving classes, we have been by no means within the “might afford a horse of our personal” bracket — however the world I used to be studying about was one the place I’d undoubtedly slot in. Looking again, I realise the extent of privilege that provides me; many different readers, equally all for horses, wouldn’t essentially have seen themselves within the horse fiction that was round after I was youthful.
You might argue that the demographics represented in traditional “horse woman” tales are a reflection of actuality: equestrian sports activities are dominated by white, cishet, well-off, abled individuals. According to a New York Times article, round 92% of the members of the United States Equestrian Federation are white, and the British Equestrian organisation notes that ‘racial range is just not an space the place equestrian sport is robust’. However, individuals of color and working-class individuals have lengthy histories of working with horses, as farmers, travellers, or as a part of buying and selling within the days earlier than mass auto transport — so it appears to be a deliberate selection on the a part of “horse woman” tales to concentrate on equestrian competitors or horse-owning for leisure, areas the place demographics skew wealthy and white, somewhat than trying on the broader world of human-horse interactions.
One of the explanations for this selection would be the age group that the tales are aimed toward: many “horse woman” books are written for center grade readers, and a sports-based, “win the competitors” story is a mainstay of center grade fiction. However, “horse woman” books have the potential to embody a numerous solid of characters and enable marginalised readers to see themselves as a part of the horse world — and a number of the fashionable examples are doing so.
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Modern-Day Horse Girls
While “horse woman” books are nonetheless largely a white, abled, cishet world, some current writers have been telling extra numerous tales. The Saddlehill Academy ebook Sweet and Bitter Rivals options a nonbinary character, whereas the primary character of The Starlight Stables Gang comes from a lower-income household, and the ebook additionally consists of a secondary character who’s a wheelchair person. Horse Girls, a assortment edited by Halimah Marcus, challenges the stereotypical thought of the “horse woman” and options contributions from real-life “horse ladies” of many alternative cultural backgrounds and different demographics, together with Black equestrians and Native American writers exploring the connection between Indigenous nations and horses.
Fiction can have an effect on actuality, and it could possibly be argued that the concentrate on horse ladies in fiction has led to girls and ladies being rather more represented in equestrianism than they’re in different sports activities. British Equestrian notes that “Equestrian sport is the one sport the place males and girls compete on equal phrases, with equal prize cash and entry to all competitions. In phrases of individuals, equestrian sport is without doubt one of the few sports activities the place nearly all of individuals are feminine (67% in accordance to the BETA National Equestrian Survey 2019) and 90% of coaches are feminine (British Equestrian Coaching Survey 2019).” While I’m not arguing that “horse woman” books are the one factor that has influenced this stage of gender fairness within the sport, it might be fascinating to see if a extra numerous vary of “horse woman” characters — and additionally horse boys and horse enbys — in fiction would lead to different marginalised teams gaining higher illustration within the equestrian world. “Horse woman” books appear to be heading in a extra numerous course. Let’s hope that they proceed and that the actual world does, too.
If you understand a horse-loving younger reader, attempt 15 of the Best Horse Books for Kids. Want to dig into what makes a nice horse story? Read On Loving, Reading and Writing Good Horse Books.
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