We did it, everyone. We survived middle school. Ready to go back?
The Saddle Club Revisited is this early millennial’s plan to dive back into the depths of being a 12 year old horse-crazy kid with what was absolutely the most important book series of my life. It’s time to pay it the respect it deserves.
The concept is simple: I’m going to read every Saddle Club book, including the Super Editions and Inside Stories, in order, and write about all of them individually. I’ll sometimes do overview posts of handfuls of the books at a time for The Plaid Horse. There will be guest bloggers, comparisons to other middle grade fiction franchises, and a lot more.
Most importantly, there will be discussions of the extremely questionable horsemanship taking place at Pine Hollow, celebrations that we’re past that phase of our lives, nostalgia for a simpler time, and a mounting case for Stevie being a lesbian. Yes, the one with the boyfriend. You’re gonna have to trust me on that.
I’m doing this because I love the series, mostly. I’m a late-30s member of the equestrian media. I’m an event rider who lives in a hay loft apartment of a barn. I take care of seven horses every day, ride several of them, and then come upstairs to write about what’s going on in the horse show world. All week long I talk to horse people, write about horse people, learn about new businesses in the horse world, and on the weekends I go compete. So I figured, hey, let’s stuff whatever free time I have left with a walk down the gravel driveway of memory into this seminal series so I can think about horses some more.
Oh, and did I mention that I have my own saddle club? I’m old enough to be the parent of a 12 year old, but instead of driving my own kids to lessons, I got together with my four best friends and we declared ourselves a Saddle Club. We even have Saddle Club weekends twice a year that let us live out our dreams of just being at horse camp all the time (but with wine, because we’re grown ups. Perhaps a small silver lining to also being old enough to have to worry about affording these horses). You’ll be hearing from all of them too.
I don’t know what the moral of this story is going to be, or who will be the friends we make along the way. I do know that this is going to be really fun, irreverent, and definitely full of questions about why a bunch of 12 year olds were regularly allowed to jump unsupervised. I do hope you’ll join us.
The Saddle Club Revisited 