The Horse-Tamer

Forget the last two books in the series, this one reads more like the Walter Farley we've come to appreciate!

The Horse-Tamer begins with Henry and Alec waiting for their plane to depart, and Henry starts talking about his brother, a horse "tamer", not trainer. The remainder of the book is the story of Bill Dailey, and how he managed to retrain vicious or severely unruly equines.

Sounds hokey, but the narrative works, has the elements that usually make Walter Farley a good read. I thoroughly enjoyed this one.

Interesting. Reasonably well-written (it is a Farley), a small frame of the Black waiting for a plane, and most of the story is Henry remembering his brother who trained horses with care and common sense when force and tricks were more common. It's a period piece when it was written, nicely handled. There's no mention of what became of the brother, oddly - well, he was older than Henry, maybe he died. The conflict in the story comes from the dispute between care and showmanship (which very quickly becomes tricks and quackery), with some exciting scenes (including (semi) taming a zebra!). Fun book, glad I read it. I'm not sure there's enough there to reward rereading, though.

First, a note: I will never try to use my Nook to write a book review again. I had written quite a long review - not easy on the Nook's touch-screen, which is not well-laid-out and lacks a number of conveniences which are standard on other Android devices - only to make the slightest mis-touch and lose EVERYTHING. That's incredibly annoying.

That said, The Horse Tamer is part of Walter Farley's Black Stallion series, and it's both charming and memorable. Bracketed by short passages featuring Alec, Henry, and the Black, it's actually a historical novel; Henry's story of his older brother, who tamed horses in the days when horses were the standard mode of transportation. Henry himself plays a small but substantial part in the tale.

Unlike show more most entries in the series, it's not a racing story. But the story of "problem" horses and how to help them is quite fascinating, as well as exciting. I first read this book as a boy, and it has stuck in my head ever since. I'm glad to be able to buy it for my own son, and for the chance to read it again. It includes the original black-and-white line drawings, which are charming. I strongly recommend this book. One caveat, however: the Nook edition has been formatted with HUGE margins. Even when the text is manually set to the smallest margin size, the margins are nearly as large as the text itself - which means that in portrait orientation, each line of text is only a few words wide. This is somewhat awkward.

I assume that the publisher did it because the book is SO short, only 100 pages. With reasonable formatting, it would have probably been closer to 70 pages long, even with the illustrations - and they may feel that it would be difficult to charge a full-novel price (even a low one) for what is probably only a novella. But it's a really fine story, and any fan of Walter Farley, the Black, or horses would be wise to pick it up. Strongly recommended! show less

Book 14 of "The Black Stallion" series

While waiting for a delayed airplane, old Henry Dailey, the Black's trainer, tells young Alec Ramsay a story of his own youth, travelling with his brother, Bill. Bill Dailey's talent as a horse-whisperer was unmatched in the days before the automobile and young Henry tells of an unscrupulous con-man who mistreats horses into behaving temporarily. Bill is determined to show that the man is a fraud, but can he unmask the con without getting hurt?Walter Farley experimented with many genres of writing and here, in his only foray into historical fiction, he weaves a fascinating tale of life when horses were the primary means of transportation.

This is an interesting book by the author of The Black Stallion series. Henry Dailey tells Alec Ramsey the story of Henry's brother Bill, who worked as a horse tamer around the turn of the century. Many horses at that time, as well as in the present, developed bad habits because of the way they were treated, and Bill knew enough about horses to be able to retrain most of them. He was the "Dog Whisperer" of his era, and spent as much time trying to re-educate the horses' owners as he did working with the animals. He even tried to tame a zebra at one point! This is a catchy tale, only loosely tied to the Black Stallion, but still an entertaining read.