PBOTD: 26th February, Michael Maguire - Mylor, the Most Powerful Horse in the World

-
Michael Maguire has a solid set of adult racing novels to his name, but he also has a couple of books written with a sort of lunatic invention that makes them stick in the mind of everyone who read them. The pony book world has its share of wildly imaginative books which take off into fantasy, but they're rare. Such books don't chime with the girl plus pony plus gymkhana blueprint, although winning the bending each and every time not because of your immaculate riding, but because of your finely engineered horse, has a certain attraction as an idea.

Because the Mylor books featured a horse alright, but Mylor was a robot. Despite that, Mylor has character - bucketfuls of it, in fact. 

WH Allen, 1976, first edition
I rather like the chestnut horse on the front cover of the original hardback (the later paperback had an identical illustration). Michael Maguire has republished the book himself, and Mylor now appears still as a chestnut with a white blaze, but he's become an Arab. Quite Shantih like in fact. The thought of Patricia Leitch's Jinny and a robotic chestnut Arabian is certainly one to give one pause for thought.

Authorhouse, 2012

~  0  ~

For more on Michael Maguire, see his page on my website.

Comments

Sue Beard said…
oh! I had no idea there was a follow up to the original! I feel a trip to Amazon coming on!
26 February 2014 at 11:11
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rollkur and the blue tongue

-
I've been meaning to write about this all week, but reading the exclusive in Horse and Hound about the controversy tipped me over the edge. For my non-horsy readers, rollkur is a training/warming up technique used by some dressage riders. It basically involves riding the horse with its jaw pulled in virtually to its chest, in order to increase suppleness. Patrik Kittel , a Swedish competitor in Odense was videoed riding his horse in this way. If you watch the video , you'll see the horse's tongue hanging out - blue. It takes a while before the rider notices this. When he does, he stops, puts the horse's tongue back in, and carries on. There are two things which bother me about this. Firstly, I am fully aware large sections of the dressage world, and some of its brighest stars, consider rollkur perfectly ok, but the FEI guidelines state this practice should only be for short periods, allowing the horse to rest. Patrick Kittel apparently rode the horse for two hou
Read more

Archibald, don't eat the bedclothes

-
Image
My friend Louise sent me this picture today. It's from a children's book with the rather wince-making title For The Wee Ones. I thought, when I read that (because I read the message before I looked at the picture) that the picture was going to be a typical winsome production from the school of artists who think (or who are paid to think) that the child is a thing sent from God and a blissful thing. They had obviously never met a child, and certainly not mine. I should have known Louise better. The artist responsible for Archibald, don't eat the bedclothes slipped this one past the editors. Just look at the poor, broken Mother Rabbit. She knows she has not the faintest chance of being listened to, and poor thing, she is stooped in the way of a mother to whom this is just the lastest in a long line of horror; with nothing good to come. And Archibald is obviously the spawn of the Devil. Just look at those eyes. He'll have the bed after he's finished the bedclothes
Read more

Dick Sparrow - 40 Horse Hitch, and Neil Dimmock's 46 Percherons

-
Image
Here's a clip of Dick Sparrow driving 40 horses. It's an amazing sight, particularly when the shot changes to show the team from the rear and you get the great incongruity of modern American corporate architecture as a background to the wagon and horses. I love the anticipation in the video: the sense of something amazing being just round the corner is palpable. Thanks to Christina Wilsdon for telling me about this world record 46 Percheron hitch (alas just stills) but you get the idea.
Read more