October 16, 2025 
“You read to fire your heart aflame. You read to lop the top of your head off. You read because you’re the bravest idiot around, and you’re willing to go on an adventure into the joy of confusion. You know when a book is working. Give it time.”
—Colum McCann, Letter to a Young Writer
Looking for a little structure to distract me from the impending sense of doom this summer, I decided I would read 100 horse books. This may sound ambitious, but I had a head start. My list of previously read pony stories was up to 94. So I should probably revise my statement: I decided to read six more horse books.
Once I started, I found it hard to stop, ferociously inhaling a few extra books in the process, bringing the total to 109 before Labor Day.
Now I proudly look back at the diverse herd of tomes lining both my shelves and audiobook queues. I have read memoirs, collections of essays, how-to books, equine philosophy, stand-alone fiction, a series or two, mystery, romance, young adult, and children’s books. It is as if fiction, nonfiction, and poetry exist as draft, light horses, and pony breeds all the same species but different packages and purposes.
Horsemanship and writing have a lot in common—the more you know, the better you can hone your craft. The equestrian who says they don’t need lessons is as massive a red flag as the writer who says they don’t read. [Editor’s note: GASP!] Just as you can learn something from every horse, you can learn something from every volume about them.
After reading so many, I noticed a few stand-out themes for what made a good horse book versus a forgettable one. A book doesn’t need to have all these elements to be successful, but it does need a solid combination of at least a few.
In storytelling, imperfection is perfection.
Reading about someone who can flawlessly ride every horse and never regrets a decision might be a fun fantasy, but it makes for boring prose. A good horse book shows flaws, mistakes, and failures. Messy people and horses are not only more entertaining to read about, they’re also more believable because they are willing to show you ugly truths.
For instance, Tik Maynard’s success trajectory in his memoir In the Middle Are the Horsemen wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying if he hadn’t struggled so spectacularly as a working student early in the book.
In fiction, we can take this a step further. Nothing in the horse world stirs things up quicker than steamy gossip or a good secret, and a good writer knows how to take advantage of both. One writer who does this brilliantly is Natalie Keller Reinert. Gossip and barn drama often push the plot of her fiction forward in a way that is both juicy and believable.
No matter the genre, a good horse book is never just about the horse.
Often, the horse is either a symbol or a harbinger of something else. A horse can symbolize a childhood coming to an end, or overcoming fear. A horse can be a tipping point of an undoing or an awakening. Horses are symbols of wildness and freedom, but they can also denote power or the oppressed, depending on the story.
The steed also can’t just be a metaphor.
Nothing makes me grouchier than a book that proclaims to be “a horse book” and then isn’t. I can forgive a book with a horse on the cover or the word ‘horse’ in the title. Again, horses are symbols, even to people who have never touched one. What really gets my goat is when the synopsis suggests a horse book, but the horses only function as extras or nameless vehicles. Sometimes the horse is mentioned in the first 50 pages and then vanishes from the plot altogether.
In these cases, I think of the advice I once received from a farm owner, “Dance with the girl that brung ya.” Or in this case, write in the horses you mention on the back cover.
A good horse book makes equines characters in their own right.
It’s easy to remember the Black’s Fiery nature in The Black Stallion or spicy Ginger, the ill-treated mare in Black Beauty. Horses are individuals, and no two are the same, which means no two relationships between people and horses are the same either.
For me, Fanny the opinionated mare from Little Britches has haunted my dreams since middle school when I first read the book. She was the childhood mount of Ralph Moody, whose family tried to start a ranch near Littleton Colorado. Ralph usually rode Fanny bareback, and she was often his companion for the odd jobs he found at nearby farms. On a reread a few months ago, Fanny was still just as vivid; she was stubborn and often bucked children off into the bushes, yet her loyalty and bravery are still the stuff of legend.
Often, when we think of horse stories, we think of racing, winning the ribbon at the horse show, or cowboys, if we are feeling adventurous. These, of course, are great stories, but they are far from the only ones. There are hundreds of horse breeds around the world, and the cultures that come with them are as varied and full of wonder as the horses themselves. A horse book worth its salt lick shows us a new world in all of their vibrancy, some far flung, some right in front of us.
While all of these aspects are ingredients for success, for me, the only common denominator is that every good horse book changes the reader’s perspective and understanding of the animal we love. Even if that insight is tiny, that piece of writing has done its job.
Growth, knowledge, and empathy make us better horsemen and women. They also make us better people, and I believe we can get that from books.
