The Racehorse Who Wouldn’t Gallop

Ooh! That’s Polly! Let me wave out to her!
Oops. I’m at an auction and I just ended up buying a horse for a thousand pounds.

No, I’m not quoting, but this is the lovely premise of a heart-warming story of a racehorse who refuses to gallop.

Ten-year-old Charlie Bass loves horses, but she has only ever ridden a cow on her farm. When she accidentally bids for a racehorse that her father must now buy, Charlie is determined to make the purchase of Noble Warrior the best decision ever, even if it means additional expenses on Folly Farm for a while. Charlie ropes her brothers Harry and Larry in and, as a team, they begin to train Noble Warrior, aka Noddy, to become the next winner of the Derby.

The Racehorse Who Wouldn’t Gallop is a story about friendship – between a horse and a palomino pony, and among the humans in the story. Most of all, though, more than all the lovely relationships in the story, I love Charlie, resilient and determined as she is. She is the best kind of protagonist, driven by her own private goals, and on the whole, unaffected by taunts and bullying. I love the story and its telling – I’m delighted that there are two more books in the Charlie Bass series!