Beauty's Son

By Anne H. Wood

Beauty’s Son, a debut novel by Anne H. Wood and Brian Keesling, is a contemporary retelling of Black Beauty, with illustrations by Rose Lowry.

“From generation to generation of the Black Beauty line, it was the duty of the first foal born each year to pass along his or her history. And I was the first-born foal of my year. Beauty told his story (which some of you have possibly heard) to better the lot of horses. I offer my story for the same reason.”

So begins the story of Beauty’s Son, a contemporary retelling of Black Beauty, a moving account of the hugely varied life of a handsome black horse named Beauty’s Son.

Son experiences good owners and bad, and befriends an array of horses, including the fiery chestnut mare, Respect; the wise former dressage champion, Synchronicity; and the street-savvy Belgian Draft, Tom. Son’s incredible journey is a path of lessons, awe, and danger, as he becomes a dressage horse, a show hunter, a jumper, a lesson horse, a New York City carriage horse, and a rental hack. Through it all this sensitive, intelligent horse tries to trust his human owners and trainers, and hopes his trust has not been misplaced.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chelsea Station Editions
• Release date: Aug 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781937627621

Anne H. Wood

Anne H. Wood and Brian Keesling (Authors) are horse people. Anne has spent a lifetime with horses—from Shetland ponies to show jumpers. In recent years, both Anne and Brian have ridden dressage. Anne and Brian’s co-authored stories have appeared in a variety of magazines, including The Literary Review, Other Voices, North Dakota Quarterly, American Way (American Airlines in-flight magazine), First for Women, Confrontation, Eureka Literary Magazine, The Grasslands Review, and The Cream City Review (fiction contest winner). Anne has twice had stories cited as One of the 100 Other Distinguished Short Stories of the Year in The Best American Short Story collections. Brian won The New Voice Award from the Writer’s Voice in New York. Anne and Brian can be contacted at [e-mail].

Book preview

ONE

My Beginning

When I was a foal, still all ears and legs, my mother told me the story of my famous ancestor, Black Beauty. In fact, my dam was named Albemarle Beauty in his honor. And while I lived at Shady Oaks Farm in Virginia I was called Beauty’s Son. From generation to generation of the Black Beauty line, it was the duty of the first foal born each year to pass along his or her history. And I was the first-born foal of my year. Beauty told his story (which some of you have possibly heard) to better the lot of horses. I offer my story for the same reason.

While I was very young I didn’t pay much attention to people. A quiet man would lead my mother and me from our stall into the grassy paddocks each morning and bring us back each evening, when he would give my mother molasses-coated sweet feed and fresh-smelling hay.

At six months old, I was separated from my mother, and put in a paddock with three other weanlings. Although my mother had told me that I would be weaned, nothing she said had prepared me for the sadness I felt. At first, all I did was call out for her. The other weanlings cried for their mothers too. But soon we noticed each other. I felt somewhat comforted by the other weanlings, and by the usual man who came to lead me back to the stall that evening. In the morning, I was put back with the three weanlings and we began to play.

As the days passed, we would race each other all around the paddock, bucking and screaming with joy. Or we would pretend to fight, rearing and pawing at the air, or nipping at each other’s necks. Then, exhausted, we would fall asleep in the soft grass and sweet-smelling clover, the sun warming us like a blanket. When we were led inside, it was to our clean stalls and our own sweet feed.

We began to make friends. Ranging over the large paddock, we would stop and graze near one another to see how we got along. Tearing the grass contentedly, we eyed each other. Moving closer, we’d see if the other foal would move away or even kick out; or if, seemingly nonchalant, he or she would stay put and we would remain together for awhile, moving slowly in tandem.

In this way we gradually grew to know each other, though there was a seal brown colt who was a loner—he moved away the moment any of the other three of us got close. Sometimes I would see him on the rise at the top of the paddock near the fence at the extreme edge of the farm. He would be looking into the distance: away from us and away from the farm—which was at this time the entirety of our known world.

This was my life for the first few years. So if I thought about people at all they seemed a source of goodness. They brought me hay and grain in the mornings and again at night, and kept my water buckets filled. They led me into the paddock to eat grass and play with my friends, and brought me back inside if the weather was bad. They kept my stall clean and full of soft shavings.

During this time I was groomed, taught to stand quietly for the vet, and had my feet regularly trimmed by the farrier. I was always treated gently.

But the first fear I can really remember well was also associated with humans. When I was three years old, I got my first shoes. I was alarmed when the red-hot shoes were first nailed to my feet, and hated realizing that the horrible smell was from my own hooves singed by the hot metal. Yet it didn’t hurt, and the farrier talked softly to me, and praised me, patting my neck.

When I was introduced to a bridle and saddle early in my third year, it was with another man, Brad, a tall slender man with dark hair and kind brown eyes. Though he also spoke quietly, I couldn’t understand why my head was being confined between leather straps or why a piece of metal was placed in my mouth. Or why a heavy weight was set on my back and strapped tightly around my barrel. But because I associated humans with goodness, I controlled my fear and stood quietly. Brad led me around for a few minutes, then patted the white star on my forehead and said, Good boy, Son. Then he removed the leather with the piece of metal and took off the weight and turned me back out in the green grass where I ran and ran, so happy to be in my comfortable world again.

The next time Brad put the saddle on my back, he also attached very long strips of leather to the metal piece in my mouth. Then he took me into the riding ring, and taught me go and whoa, and how to turn right and left by the extra pressure he put on the reins. Once again, he praised me. You look just like Black Beauty, jet black with a white star and one white sock, he said. And I think you’re just as smart as he was, too.

I remembered his praise when one day he sat in the saddle, and when the next day I was ridden for the first time. I knew that the commands he gave me that day were the same which he’d taught me with the long reins. It wasn’t until he asked me to trot around the ring that I felt a bit worried, because even though he stayed very steady in the saddle, I felt as if I were tipping to the side around the corners. But after a few days, I began to find my balance, even when we started to canter. And I was proud to be learning and doing a good job.

I was still turned out with the horses from my weanling days, all now three years old. Every day one of us would be chosen to be schooled by Brad instead of being turned out with our friends. The next day, back in the paddock, the horse who’d been ridden would describe his training to the rest. In that way, we came to learn more about this new experience. Brad was nearly always full of praise for us and after each ride we were given a carrot, carefully broken into two pieces so that we wouldn’t choke on it. Brad, we learned, looked after us in all possible ways. We trusted him.

One hot day while Gold Standard, a proud palomino, was telling his story to us—inflating his ability and Brad’s praise of him as usual—we heard the abrasive sound of steel shoes against pavement. Along one side of the paddock ran a road on which there were often cars, and sometimes horses and riders. Brad was coming to get one of us when the horse on the road could first be seen, still in the distance. As he, a lanky gray, drew closer, we could see that he was covered in lather from being galloped hard. The horse’s eyes were large in pain because his right front leg was sore. Now still being forced into a fast trot, his rhythm was off: the steel shoes didn’t ring a trot’s usual two-beat cadence. He was limping and head-nodding lame.

Brad yelled, You stop now! And when the rider showed no sign of slowing, Brad vaulted over the fence into the center of the road. Whoa, he said holding out his arms. The gray came to a standstill.

His rider, a pale young man with a big belly, glared at Brad. Are you trying to cause an accident? he yelled. You could have spooked my horse!

Can’t you feel your horse is badly off, Mister? Brad said. His voice, as always, was calm, but lacking its usual warmth.

There was no answer to his question. In the silence Brad ran his fingers lightly along the gray’s leg. The horse flinched and Brad looked up at the rider. Bowed tendon, he said. If you have any human decency, you’ll get off your horse and let me trailer you back to your stable.

Mind your own business, the man said. His pale face flushed red.

We were all gathered near the fence, listening.

Your horse is in pain and needs to see a vet. You must get off him! Brad’s voice now sounded like thunder.

We saw the angry look in the rider’s eyes but it was no match for the steely look in Brad’s eyes. We’d seldom heard Brad raise his voice before, and never had it been raised this loud. The other man got off his horse. As the gray horse was led past us to be trailered back to his farm, he looked at us with envy.

A week or so after that, when my ride was over, Brad walked me beside the stream that ran through the property. He halted me beneath a big spreading oak, where he dismounted and stood beside me for a while. He seemed troubled: there were little lines crisscrossing his forehead. He looked at me and sighed.

Son, he said, I used to hack your sister beside this stream. I’ve gotten to know a lot of horses over the years, and she was something special. She moved off of the lightest aids, almost anticipating what you were going to ask of her. But that doesn’t really get at what was special about her.

He ran his hand along my neck and I realized he was picturing her. I felt fear, not for myself, but for my sister. I waited for him to say more. Beauty’s Bay was just as sweet-tempered as you. Always willing to do what you asked of her. All the horses in your line have great heart. He didn’t say more, not then or on the way back to the barn, but when he closed the door to my stall, he gave me not one carrot but two.

When my mother was next pastured near me, I asked her about my bright bay sister who I remembered seeing when I was a yearling. My mother said she had been sold to a jumping stable, where she had won many ribbons, especially in what were called speed classes. Bay loved to run when she was a foal, my mother said. And when she was a yearling, she could outrun all of the others, even the colts. But one day, at a big show, her rider asked for too much, expecting my sister to make an especially sharp turn at extreme speed. She had stumbled and broken her front leg. And that was all for her, my mother said. Those were the most sorrowful words I’d heard during my three years at Shady Oaks Farm.

Some humans think horses are dangerous, my mother said. And all people say that they have to be able to trust the horse they ride. But we horses have to be able to trust also. It has to be a partnership between horse and rider.

That night before falling asleep, I kept thinking about my sister and about the gray horse with the injured leg. I hoped that I would always have humans I could trust.

TWO

Harmony

I would have been happy staying at Shady Oaks Farm forever, but only broodmares and young horses lived there. My mother had explained that the people who owned the farm made money by having Brad start the young stock and then sell them. So when I was nearly four years old I was sold to a nearby farm. Although I was sad to leave my mother, I knew that it was time for me to go out in the world and begin life on my own.

Always remember that you come from a line of courageous horses, Son, my mother said. Remember how Black Beauty remained a good horse, even though many of the people he knew weren’t good. I realized she was warning me. But I also knew that Black Beauty had lived a long time ago, and that we now lived in more advanced, more humane times. I knew there were exceptions, such as the gray horse’s rider and my sister’s rider, but my sister and the gray horse just had terrible luck.

Centerline, my new home, was a dressage stable. My mother was pleased that I would be trained in dressage. She said it was less dangerous than jumping. She explained that all the work would be on the flat, but that I would eventually be asked to do very intricate and demanding movements. Fortunately, the training would be gradual, over many years, as my muscles developed.

Centerline was a much smaller farm than Shady Oaks. There were only five other horses living there and I was to be the personal horse for the mother of the family who owned the farm. They were named Winchester. When I stepped off the trailer on that sunny morning, the family was there to meet me. There was a towheaded young son, a tall gray-haired man, and a tall golden-haired woman. I had already met her; she had been to Shady Oaks to try me out. She had very soft hands, one of the best things a horse can have in a rider. To have soft hands means that the rider uses the bit very gently. And today the woman spoke to me very softly, too. We horses like soft low voices. Some people seem to think that because we’re larger than they are, they have to speak in big voices, but this is not so. Our ears are incredibly sensitive. Welcome to your new home, son, the woman said, stroking my neck. Some humans like to thump us as though we are drums when they pet us. Again, perhaps because we are big animals, they think this is fine. But our skin is also extremely sensitive. Watch a tiny fly land on a horse, and see how his skin flinches. I was glad that my new owner understood horses.

He’s beautiful, Mom, the son said. He looked to be about nine years old, judging by what I’d seen of human young.

He looks just like Black Beauty, the father said. I’ve seen that photo of Beauty at Shady Oaks.

Yes, the Beauty line throws true, Mrs. Winchester said.

He’s a fancy one, Senora. This was said by a small yet muscular man with lively dark eyes.

Why don’t you take him to his new stall, Marceleno, Mrs. Winchester said. I won’t ride him until tomorrow. Let’s give him a day to settle in.

The small, bright-eyed man, Marceleno, led me into a light-filled, wide-aisled stable. And then he opened the door to a large corner stall. There were Dutch doors at the opposite end of the stalls, opening into grass-filled paddocks.

Some horses must think they’re very special. I turned my head to see a beautiful chestnut mare across the aisle. She had large intelligent eyes and fine ears that came to delicate points. Her facial marking was a crooked blaze which somehow made her refined head even more interesting. The blaze was an interrupted one, divided almost perfectly in half. It was the most unusual marking I’d ever seen.

She’s just angry because that used to be her stall. This was a huge light gray gelding in the stall beside mine. He was easily eighteen hands, with a massive body. But Respect is always angry about something, he said. They moved her because she wouldn’t stop kicking at me. I am Synchronicity. Welcome. His calm, deep voice reminded me of Brad’s.

I’m Beauty’s Son, I said.

Oh, really? the mare said, tossing her head. The nameplate on my stall, excuse me, I mean on YOUR stall, says ‘Harmony.’

They changed your name, Son, the big gray said. My first name was ‘Hauptstock Weldmeyer III.’ Here, they like names that refer to dressage. Dressage is supposed to be the ultimate harmonious relationship between horse and rider. ‘Harmony’ is a good name.

Always remember your real name, the mare said. No matter what they call you. I’ve had five names given to me already! But I know what my real name is!

What is your real name? I asked. I could call you by it, if you like.

I don’t like! she said, pinning her ears back.

I’m sorry, I said. She turned her back on me in reply.

Oh, don’t apologize to her, Synchronicity said. Your good manners will be wasted on that one. And she won’t tell any of us her name, so don’t be offended. It’s probably some girlie name like ‘Crystal Princess,’ he said, a mischievous glint in his big dark eye.

It is not, the mare said indignantly, turning back around. And whatever it is, at least it’s not ‘Hauptstock Weldmeyer the 3rd,’ she said.

The gray gelding just bared his teeth and laughed out loud. His laugh, like his voice was deep and full, pleasing to the ear. It seemed to resonate against the very boards of the stalls.

Then Marceleno came back into the aisle, carrying a large black saddle and matching black bridle. When she saw him, Respect flattened her ears again.

"You’d better not do that to the Senora, mija, Marceleno said. You’re lucky to be in this stable." Then he haltered her and led her into the aisle to be tacked up.

When Respect was led away, Synchronicity turned to me. "Marceleno is right. This is a good place. Did you hear him call Respect ‘my daughter?’ We’re like a big family here. And dressage is good work to have. It uses your body and your mind. After my training sessions, I would stand in my stall and think about what I’d learned that day and what I would do the next day. Mrs. Winchester used to say I

Reviews for Beauty's Son

[maryann12_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is simply BEAUTIFUL. Son’s experiences the best and the worst humanity has to offer its companion animals. A good lesson in understanding how important kindness is, even, and perhaps especially, to those who cannot verbalize their gratitude. Anne H. Wood and Brian Keesling opted to write this book from “the horse's point of view” and they are one of the very few authors that were able to pull this off with such great success.I loved it! It was a quick but entertaining read and easy to understand. It handles respect, dignity, how to treat others, how to treat humans, and basic values in such a masterful way that all learn something valuable while enjoying a well-written story. Highly recommend this book.