Elizabeth Letts
#1 ,NEW YORK TIMES ,BESTSELLER,November 1958: the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Into the rarefied atmosphere of wealth and tradition comes the most unlikely of horsesâ€”a drab white former plow horse named Snowmanâ€”and his rider, Harry de Leyer. They were the longest of all longshotsâ€”and their win was the stuff of legend.,Â ,Harry de Leyer first saw the horse he would name Snowman on a bleak winter afternoon between the slats of a rickety truck bound for the slaughterhouse. He recognized the spark in the eye of the beaten-up horse and bought him for eighty dollars. On Harryâ€™s modest farm on Long Island, the horse thrived. But the recent Dutch immigrant and his growing family needed money, and Harry was always on the lookout for the perfect thoroughbred to train for the show-jumping circuitâ€”so he reluctantly sold Snowman to a farm a few miles down the road.,Â ,But Snowman had other ideas about what Harry needed. When he turned up back at Harryâ€™s barn, dragging an old tire and a broken fence board, Harry knew that he had misjudged the horse. And so he set about teaching this shaggy, easygoing horse how to fly. One show at a time, against extraordinary odds and some of the most expensive thoroughbreds alive, the pair climbed to the very top of the sport of show jumping.,Â ,Here is the dramatic and inspiring rise to stardom of an unlikely duo, based on the insight and recollections of â€œthe Flying Dutchmanâ€ himself. Their story captured the heart of Cold Warâ€“era Americaâ€”a story of unstoppable hope, inconceivable dreams, and the chance to have it all. Elizabeth Lettsâ€™s message is simple: Never give up, even when the obstacles seem sky-high. There is something extraordinary in all of us.
Nonfiction,Animals,Horses,Animals,Biography,History,Sports,Sports,Historical,Autobiography,Memoir,Biography Memoir,Audiobook
The Eighty-Dollar Champion: Snowman, the Horse That Inspired a Nation