A Sunday Horse: Inside the Grand Prix Show Jumping Circuit

Rating:
Summary: Finally a good book on an often overlooked sport which
Review: Finally a good book on an often overlooked sports which deserves to be written about with the care that Vicky Moon has provided in these pages. The book has covered not just the riders and the trainers, but the grooms who work so hard. I loved the stories about the carrot man. It brings together the glamor, the glitz and yes, also the darker side. The first book to really tell it like it really is.

Rating:
Summary: Not many horses, Sunday or otherwise...
Review: For a book entitled "The Sunday Horse", one would expect it to have at least SOME horses discussed in the text; "The Sunday Horse OWNER" would really be a more apropos title for this lightweight tome.When I picked this book up, I was hoping that it would follow one particular rider or trainer or barn for their entire Grand Prix campaign. How interesting this could have been, getting to know one or two people in depth, learning about the horses they work with, the strengths & weaknesses, caring about their wins, losses, injuries...instead, I found 200 pages of 3 paragraph profiles of people who are either super-rich, or super-marginal.

The author, Vicky Moon, lists "People" magazine amongst her credits. It shows. Her writing is very much in "People"'s style, being rather breathless puff-pieces that spend considerable time dwelling on the "Lifestyles of the Rich & Horsey" aspects of her subjects. At each horse show covered in her book, the list of local socials & celebrities attending is given more attention than the International caliber horses competing!

Each chapter of this book covers one particular horse show & it's habitues, from the chairperson through the lady running a sweater shop. She opens at "Welly World" (Wellington FL, near Palm Beach) & closes at the Washington DC horse show. You may find out about the guy who directs traffic for the event, but you definitely won't know much about the Grand Prix competition itself!

As a long-time horsey person who has always dreamed of competing at Grand Prix level, I found one aspect of her book continually frustrating: she does not identify the horses in her photographs! You'll see pictures of great riders past (Rodney Jenkins, Anthony d'Ambrosio) & present (Marjorie Goldstein-Engle) but if you want to know the name of their mount, you won't find it either in either the text or the photo caption. With all the discussion of multi-million dollar equine talent in the book, one would think the horses would get an acknowledgement too; after all, these are HORSE shows, not RIDER shows!

Another annoying lack is one of either index or sources. Ms. Moon must have consulted literature other than show press releases; why not list them? Why make a reader page through the book looking for a mention of their particular favorites, when an index could make it so easy?

Typos, mis-spellings, and confusing sentences abound as well; this is a book in need of a good proof-reader!

If the only thing you know about Grand Prix show jumping is having seen it once or twice on television, you may enjoy "The Sunday Horse". If, however, you are a horse-lover who has stood at the In-Gate yourself, you won't find much here that you couldn't read in a People magazine article. What a shame.


Rating:
Summary: This book is a huge disappointment.
Review: From the book title and the excerpt on the jacket, you expect this book to be a behind the scenes look at grand prix show jumping. However, all you get is a look at how much this person paid for that horse and what company they own and who their romantic partner is and so on. You don't even get a biography of any horses or their riders. No look at how to develop a "sunday horse", how riders prepare for the the big events, etc. It was more like a long gossip column than anything else. I very strongly disliked this book and would never recommend it to anyone!

Rating:
Summary: depressing
Review: I was very disappointed with this book. The author is primarily preoccupied with how much money the horses' owners do or do not have, how much money the horses win or cost, and how much it costs to compete in the circuits that have grand prix classes. Money is definitely part of th H/J world, but it is not the only thing, and it is certainly not the most interesting thing! There is precious little here to read if you are actually interested in horses and riders instead of the social scene that surrounds the nation's top shows. Yuck.

Rating:
Summary: Insightful, Fun Look at the World of Horses
Review: Vicky Moon brings out her stinging but fun writing style again in "A Sunday Horse," a behind-the-scenes look at the world of the Grand Prix Circuit. With the Olympics coming up, this book was an especially interesting read, and I look forward to watching the Olympic Equestrian events with Vicky Moon's book next to me. Her writing style combines the humor of "Best in Show" with a genuine love and appreciation of horses and the horse world.

Rating:
Summary: Not worth the time
Review: Wow, seems the only thing Vicky cares for is how much money someone has and how much the spent on their horse. I found that this book did not have any substantive insight (other than $ signs) into the Grand Prix H/J world. I was disappointed to learn more about what clothing and shops are available at the shows than the stories behind top riders, horses and trainers. Many of the stories that were told about trainers or riders were superfacial and often not in their own words. Not much new here. I also thought it unnecessary to point out if the barn manager and/or owner was "African American". I realize that the H/J equestrian world is not very diverse but I found this strange.