Acclaimed journalist and avid equestrian Sarah Maslin Nir (who was a Finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for “Unvarnished,” her investigation into New York City’s nail salon industry) began riding horses when she was just two years old and hasn’t stopped since. Horse Crazy is a fascinating, funny, and moving love letter to these graceful animals and the people who — like her — are obsessed with them. It is also a coming-of-age story of Nir growing up as an outsider within the world’s most elite inner circles, and finding her true north in horses.
“On weekends, we went to the beach. Driving down Old Stone Highway in Amagansett, the next town over, in the Taurus one afternoon, we passed a spotted pony. She was nut-brown and splotched with white, a pattern that is known in the horse world as a pinto, and stood in a small pen by the side of the road. The pen was overgrown with vines of trumpet creeper so that she stood chest deep in pink petals. That’s when the epiphany hit my parents: putting me on a moving horse would be the secret to getting me to sit still. That is, I’d be moving but seated, rooted to where they could see me. On a horse, I could be as hyper as I itched to be but unable to skitter out of sight. They turned up the vine-laced drive.
They had no idea what their clever plan would set in motion.”
(To read the entire excerpt from the chapter entitled “Guernsey” click here.)
Nir takes readers into the far corners of the riding world and profiles some of its most interesting figures including California trainer Monty Roberts, who earned the nickname “the man who listens to horses”; George and Ann Blair, who run a riding academy in Manhattan’s Harlem River area seeking to resurrect the legacy of the African American cowboy; and Francesca Kelly, whose life’s mission is to protect an endangered Indian breed of horse and bring them to America. She delves into the lives of the Virginia’s “saltwater cowboys” who oversee the annual Chincoteague Island pony drive
Nir also shares her own moving personal narrative, from her father’s harrowing tale of surviving the Holocaust, and her lonely upbringing in Manhattan where horses became her family and helped her overcome heartbreak and loss. She even chased down truants in Central Park as an auxiliary mounted patrol officer.
Infused with heart and wit, Horse Crazy is an unforgettable blend of beautifully written memoir and first-rate reporting.
Listen to an excerpt: author Sarah Maslin Nir reads from her new book Horse Crazy:
The book is published by Simon & Schuster and can be purchased here.
