Readers Up #1: The Head and Not the Heart
There's a lot to love about Natalie Keller Reinert's first Alex and Alexander story, but one line struck me exactly where I live. Oh, I can't live without horses! narrator Alex exclaims, mimicking her younger self and how she knows women like her must appear to an outside gaze.Such an exclamation! Was that really true? Could anyone simply not live without horses? That seemed terribly dramatic and grade school. Maybe I just didn't want to grow up, out-grow my pony stickers and fairy tales.
Of course, Alex is a horsewoman through and through. After coming up in eventing, showing, and other equine activities indigenous to the Weird Horse Girl, she's now an assistant conditioner and barn foreman for an Ocala-based Thoroughbred trainer. Her life cannot be lived without horses. They rooted themselves strongly enough in her that she didn't out-grow them; they carried her to a Marion County training farm and to Aqueduct, from dressage ribbons to floral blankets and all points in between. The difference between pony stickers and Coggins tests is one of degree, not type. Lives can run on four hooves--a notion that seemed starry and impossible to me years ago, as a suburban kid with little access to horses beyond my imagination. It was inevitable that I would out-grow Saddle Club and my sticker book filled with anatomically-accurate warmbloods, Lisa Frank unicorns, and fake-furred ponies. Horses were something you loved, not something you did for a living.
There's a tinge in the broader culture of horse-craziness being a feminine concern, and not a little unappealing.The natural course of things is for single-minded tween horse worship to be supplanted by something acceptably normative, a diversion and dilution of the girl's private galaxy. The girls likeliest to grow into horsewomen seem to come from horse families, a tendency contributing to racing as a league of dynasties. But sometimes the inventiveness of adulthood is what's required, rather than the imagination of childhood: the head, not the heart. In this way, coming back to horses after so many years spent trying to outgrow them felt like stumbling onto a lost continent. It seemed right to abandon attempts to please men in favor of women and horses... proper to try to remake my life with seeds that had long been lying dormant. Alex is the character I hadn't known I was waiting for until I tried to create someone like her myself, because--as her author says--those spunky horse-obsessed kids do grow up. They populate the worlds of showing and racing, breeding and re-training, their devotion unswerving and their hard work creating the next generation of horses, and horse lovers.
If they're lucky, they only become more themselves.
The Head and Not the Heart is wry-voiced and humorous, intensely personal, and brimming with obviously-expert specs gleaned from the author's life with horses. It's contemporary and often topical (particularly in its discussion of female personnel and male trainers) but feels timeless, particularly within the scope of Thoroughbred racing, a sport that seems caught out of time. This book kicked off a gorgeous array of equestrian fiction from its author, so if you've been jonesing for show horses with personality, gritty details of barn-and-backside life, and intricate horse-centric universes, know that Natalie Keller Reinert's back catalog really delivers. How about some words from the author herself? Natalie was kind enough to chat with me about New York and Florida racing, horses with personality, and her go-to recommendation for track lit. Check it out:
DH: Hi, Natalie! Give us a glance into how you decided to begin writing racing stories.
NKR: I started writing racing stories as a child, then again as an adult. When I took it up again, I'd been running Retired Racehorse Blog for almost a year and I was getting a pretty thick skin from Internet criticism. I figured if I could put myself out there with my training stories and opinions, I was finally brave enough to show my fiction to the world. So I started to write The Head and Not the Heart. When I began it, I was living in Florida on a small farm. When I finished it, I was living in Brooklyn in a small apartment, and I'd been working at NYRA tracks, really living two completely different lifestyles in the morning and the evening. It gave me nonstop inspiration. I still have nonstop inspiration. I live in the intersection of the horse world and the real world, which I think is a real opportunity to see things with fresh eyes every day. So I can tell racing stories to horse show people, and horse show stories to racing people, and I hope we can all become one big crossover episode someday.
NKR: I started writing racing stories as a child, then again as an adult. When I took it up again, I'd been running Retired Racehorse Blog for almost a year and I was getting a pretty thick skin from Internet criticism. I figured if I could put myself out there with my training stories and opinions, I was finally brave enough to show my fiction to the world. So I started to write The Head and Not the Heart. When I began it, I was living in Florida on a small farm. When I finished it, I was living in Brooklyn in a small apartment, and I'd been working at NYRA tracks, really living two completely different lifestyles in the morning and the evening. It gave me nonstop inspiration. I still have nonstop inspiration. I live in the intersection of the horse world and the real world, which I think is a real opportunity to see things with fresh eyes every day. So I can tell racing stories to horse show people, and horse show stories to racing people, and I hope we can all become one big crossover episode someday.
Several meaningful horses feature in The Head and Not the Heart, including Saltpeter, Parker the Pony, and The Tiger Prince. Are any of these based on horses you’ve known?
I love basing equine characters on real-life horses. I usually mix-and-match with coat schemes and personalities and breeds, but there's generally one horse at the bottom of it. In this case, Saltpeter was not a particular horse, nor was Parker--although I named him for Joe Parker, whom I galloped for at Aqueduct. The Tiger Prince was based on a racehorse I totally fell in love with at Tampa Bay Downs back before this book was written, so 2009 or so. He was by Hold That Tiger. I had a thing for Hold That Tiger babies and this particular one just struck me as so elegant, so clever, so athletic. He loved Tampa's footing and just ran like a furious dancer there. I loved him.
As someone who’s lived in both New York and Florida, would you rather spend a day at Aqueduct or at Gulfstream? Any favorite NY- or FL-bred racehorses?
A day at Aqueduct or Gulfstream... that seriously depends on the weather. A cool day in Manhattan is a bone-chilling day at Aqueduct, thanks to the constant wind off Jamaica Bay. And a hot day in Florida... that needs no introduction. I wouldn't say that I love Aqueduct, but I do enjoy going there because I recognize a lot of the horsemen and it's a familiar place for me. I've had Aqueduct sand in my teeth; I know that place way too well. I've only been to Gulfstream once, for a Florida Derby, so it was just too crowded for me to enjoy. If I could choose a Florida track, I'd choose Tampa Bay Downs, which is a charmer. And if I could choose a New York track, it would be Saratoga all day long.
Has your experience in publishing and marketing your own books prompted you to try traditional publishing, or do you prefer to have free rein over your creations?
I love the opportunities self-publishing has given me to reach my audience and write the books I want to write, and they want to read. If I'd started five years earlier, maybe even three years earlier, my chances of finding readers would have been so slim. Instead, we've made equestrian fiction a powerhouse of great books for riders of all disciplines. That being said, self-pub has its limitations. I don't have the time to spend on marketing and distribution that could get my books past Amazon and into the hands of less tech-savvy readers. I definitely have traditional publishing goals, if only to widen the net and reach more readers.
How do you balance writing for racetrackers versus a wider audience who may not be familiar with the ins and outs of Thoroughbreds?
I don't think I really have. If I feel I need to explain things about Thoroughbreds, I try to keep my words subtle. I suppose if I really had to explain a claiming race, I'd frame it in a dialogue with a character just learning about the sport. And even then I'd take it easy on the liner notes. If a deep understanding of a concept is truly important to the narrative, it will show up in the context of the story. If it's just a detail a reader doesn't get, they can always look it up themselves. I've read plenty of books filled with details I didn't understand at first glance. It's part of storytelling to illuminate the important bits, and the rest is just background to help a reader fill in the stage settings.
What was the first story you ever wrote?
I have no idea, but it was definitely about a horse. I have a pile of notebooks from elementary school filled with Black Beauty stories. When I was a kid I discovered a series of books--Black Beauty's Clan, Black Beauty's Family--by the Pullein-Thompson sisters who wrote all those pony books, and they inspired me to write my own. I wrote one called "A Bay Beauty."
What’s next on your project list?
I'm happy to say I'm about to release a new book, a sequel to Show Barn Blues called Horses in Wonderland. A lot of readers have been asking for another book about Grace, and I decided this was her year. After that, I'm working on a new horse racing concept with an entirely new set of characters. I've written an introduction to it as a way to get to know the characters and I have to tell you, I'm really, really excited about it. It's going to be a bit of a departure from what I've done before, and I'm ready for the challenge.
Is there a book in the racing canon that you’d recommend to every reader?
I'd hand Turning For Home to anyone, whether they were interested in racing, showing, trail riding, or had never been near a horse. Even though it's marked as part of the Alex and Alexander Series, it easily stands alone. It was a top three finisher for the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award, which is for horse racing literature, but I think the themes, which include very universal problems like keyboard warriors and Internet extremism, can speak to anyone.
Dreaming of Ocala and Ozone Park,
Diana
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