My grandpa had several acres of land where he grazed cattle and a pony. The pony didn't belong to grandpa, but to a friend of his who needed a place to keep it temporarily. Whenever we would visit, he'd call that pony out of the pasture and give us rides around the yard. I would pretend that pony was mine and even told friends back home that I had a little pony in the mountains. I guess many girls dream about horses. I grew up in rural east Virginia and several friends of mine actually had horses, but most of us just collected and played with model horses. I read Black Beauty, several times over, and remember badly wanting a horse of my own. I would work on all sorts of plans hoping, to make it possible. But no matter how many babysitting jobs I had, there would never be enough money to cover the cost of boarding a horse. In Enid Bagnold's book, National Velvet, the main character is a horse-crazy fourteen year-old girl named Velvet. Velvet spends her days dreaming of horses and collects paper cut-out horses in a shell box that she uses for make-believe stories and play. Having never read this book growing up, I had assumed the horse in the story was named Velvet. Actually the horse's name is Pie because of it's piebald markings. The horse is a nuisance to its owner because it is constantly jumping fences and running wild through town. When Pie's owner finally has enough of repeatedly wrangling his escaped horse, he puts it up for a community raffle and Velvet is the lucky winner! I could sympathize with Velvet when her father, concerned about the cost and upkeep of a horse, is not too pleased with the idea of having such a horse. Velvet has a plan though, and with her mother's support she enlists Mi, an initiate in her father's butcher shop, to help her train the horse for the Grand National. In this race, horses and riders have to contend with many different types of fences and lots of other horses trying to jump them at the same time. Velvet is resolute in her belief that Pie can win the National and after months of training this proves true when she rides Pie to victory. National Velvet, a 1935 publication, takes place in Liverpool, England. Since Enid Bagbold was a Brit, its dialogue and dialect are very authentic. It took a little time to accustom myself to the characters' language, but soon became fully immersed in the story. Anticipating that my condensed summary doesn't ruin things for those who haven't read it yet, I have to elaborate on the element of conflict … what makes a simple story into a page-turner. In Velvet's day, there is no equal opportunity for female jockeys. In fact, female jockeys were not allowed, so of course Velvet has to enter the race posing as a male. I like the way Bagnold creates strong roles for women with her characters. It seems that Velvet has inherited spunk and determination from her mother, who is known for being the first woman to ever swim the English Channel. Along with her success as an English novelist, Bagnold was a mother of four children. I find it interesting that in this novel, Velvet had three sisters and a little brother. It seems likely that this large and lively fictional family may have reflected her real-life family in many ways.Bagnold's prose is also very beautiful and connected me fully with each character's emotions. Here is a small excerpt that shows what Velvet and her co-hort Mi were experiencing when they considered, then decided, who (Velvet) would ride Pie in the National. “There are evenings, full of oxygen and soft air, evenings after rain (and triumph) when mist curls out of the mind, when reason is asleep, stretched out on a low beach at the bottom of the heart, when something sings like a cock at dawn, a long-drawn, wild note.”
This is very dated now but was once obligatory reading for horse-mad girls, if only because there wasn't a lot of other such books. Then Elizabeth Taylor, Mickey Rooney and Donald Crisp made the film and it took off big-time.Velvet Brown lives in a small English town with four sisters and a little brother, Donald. He's a right pain and the older girls are all concerned about nail polish, hair dos and boyfriends. Velvet however wants a horse. There is a lot of social comment and discussion which gets in the way of the horse story and can make it tedious especially for younger readers.Velvet gets her wish when a half-broken piebald horse is sold to her cheaply; in the film it's a bright bay. She names him The Pie and with the help of a wandering young stable worker who spots the horse's potential she trains him up for steeplechasing. Her mother once swum the English Channel and was rewarded with gold sovereigns, which she now uses as a race entry fee for Velvet and The Pie in the Grand National. Perhaps Mrs Brown didn't like Velvet very much, given that this was the most dangerous race in Britain at the time, with severe obstacles which have now been reduced because so many horses were killed. Another snag is that The Pie was not a Thoroughbred and has never raced. Enid Bagnold the author says that "for all I can find a donkey could have entered at that time, provided he was the right age." And a third snag is that girls were not allowed to be jockeys. So Velvet has to pretend to be a foreign boy jockey who doesn't speak English or much of anything. Altogether it has been described as a farce by racehorse trainers.The race itself is a great thrill and at the time news passed by telegraph as there was no live coverage, so it takes a while before news gets back to her home town. When news arrives, Velvet's parents address each other by first name for the first time in the book - it's always been Mrs Brown and Mr Brown between them - and shut up shop for the day.As a follow-up Bryan Forbes wrote International Velvet about Velvet's teenage niece Sarah Velvet Brown who rides a three-day-event horse called Arizona Pie to the Olympics. This was filmed with Tatum O'Neal as Sarah and Nanette Newman as Velvet, also included Anthony Hopkins, Christopher Plummer and Bryan Forbes, who also directed. Most horsey people believe that this is a better book and film.For rather better stories about young people and racehorses try reading Vian Smith, whose books such as King Sam, The Minstrel Boy, The Horses of Petrock, Come Down the Mountain and The Lord Mayor's Show are harder to find but far better written and are by a racehorse trainer. For American books try Walter Farley's books about The Black Stallion.
What do You think about National Velvet (2003)?
I read this long ago, as a horse-crazy girl. I am still a horse-crazy girl in a 55-year-old body, however, with horses! This book brought the world of steeplechasing, England's culture, racing culture, to me. Long before Dick Frances wrote about racing, Enid Bagnold wrote about a girl who dreamed of riding in the Grand National, the toughest Steeplechase in the world. Of course, girls couldn't be jockeys, so the heroine must pretend to be one. I lived vicariously through the heroine, who Elizabeth Taylor played in the movie, with Mickey Rooney as the trainer who helps her. This is a book I would love to re-read as an adult. So many books...so little time!
—Debbie Curtis
Rather oddly written -- it took me a few chapters to get used to the style (and, rather like Narrow Dog To Carcassonne, which I read earlier this year, I just had to make peace with always being vaguely confused about what was going on). I picked this up from the children's section of the library, but it doesn't really strike me as a children's book unless you've got a really sophisticated reader who is interested in early 20th-century British family life. It's definitely more about a girl and the people around her than about the horses in her life -- the horses are often overshadowed or just plain forgotten. I still found it enjoyable despite its quirks and I especially liked that the story doesn't just end with the race but goes a bit further to deal with the frenzy of fame and controversy.
—Laura Bang
I chose to read this on a whim, thinking it would be a quick, easy read. After all, it's a children's novel, right? Well I was wrong. I guess it was easy, but it wasn't quick because it was boring! You have to read 25% of the book before Velvet even gets a horse. And she pretty much never rides it "on screen." Even the Grand National is run over the space of a few pages, told from the point of view of someone who can't even see what's going on. Most of the book was devoted to discussion of things that didn't matter at all to the story--like whether or not Velvet is wearing her retainer and what's for dinner. Also, none of the children acted their age--the little brother is very babyish and he's supposed to be four, and Velvet plays with cut out pictures of horses at the age of 14 and her older sisters seem genuinely interested in what she's doing. And the mother was treated badly by the narrator and minor characters even though she seemed like the best person in the book. Plus, most of the characters had terrible names like Malvolia and Araminty.
—Kim
