Callie Smith Grant

The stories in this book are pretty short- most just a few pages long, all with the theme of being rescued. Wide variety of situations and types, the common thread being (of course) horses, and that all the authors are women. They're all good stories, that warm your heart. Some are about horses taken from abusive or neglectful situations, and brought back to health. One is about a horse adopted from the BLM program that rounds up mustangs to control the population numbers. There are horses with behavior problems that needed careful re-schooling, unhappy or unwell children and women who were helped by working with a horse, old horses that needed a companion in their retirement, younger ones that just hadn't found quite the right owner yet, and so on. It was nice to see that not all the stories had a happy ending for the writer, per se. There was more than one story about a struggle to work with a certain horse, and it just wasn't going well, so finally they sold the horse or found it a new home, all to the better. It's not all strictly horses, either- there are quite a few donkeys featured, and one zebra! The people are all different too- from new riders to experienced ones, competitive professionals and those who simply enjoy trail rides. There are women who were on horseback since a young age, and others who learned it as a new skill well into adulthood. I liked all the stories, I just didn't find them very memorable- when done reading, I couldn't put my finger on any one in particular to summarize in detail. But that's okay, it's staying on my shelf for another read someday.… (mere)

The subtitle: "True Stories of the Horses We Rescue and the Horses Who Rescue Us" accurately tells us what the book is about. "Second-Chance Horses" is a collection of 33 very short stories (none over ten pages long) about the relationship of horses and people. Some of the stories are about people who loved horses from the time they were young children. Some of the horses had been mistreated before they were rescued, and took a while to become trusting. Not all of the animals are horses; mules and a zebra are included. The stories are about everyday people. The only celebrity mentioned is Elvis Presley, who appeared in one story. This collection will interest to "horse people."… (mere)

Disclaimer: I received an ARC via a Librarything giveaway.

When I entered the Librarything giveaway for this book, I didn’t know that Revell was part of a Christian publishing house. When I started received the book and realized, I was a bit wary, t’s not that I have not read work from Christian publishing houses before, but some faith based published books are bit . . well . . too much. This is not one of them. It is simply a collection of true stories about horses and their place in the lives of the authors.
Most of the stories in this book do not mention God or praying. There is maybe a total of five that do, with only two of those with a power of prayer theme (and those written by the same author). While all the stories are written by women (with some contributing more than one) living in the US, the collection includes work from South American and Middle Eastern born writers as well.
The theme of the book is second chances, be it in the adopting of a horse or mini-Donkey (there are quite few mini donkeys here) or about an horse helping the rider/owner or even a horse recovering from an illness. The stories are heartwarming. And a couple of the essays are connected. There are a couple of essays that deal with horses from well known horse therapy groups such as Gentle Carousel Miniature. There is even a story about a zebra as well as discussions about BLM.
I particularly appreciated the stories that included parts that illustrated that every horse is not right for every rider, and that sometimes the best thing for both woman and steed was to rehome the horse. It was good to see that, and it ensured that the stories, though feel good, weren’t Hollywood feel good. I also really did enjoy reading about Pumpkin who drives the golf cart as well as a woman’s obsession with Secretariat.
While it is true that some of the stories do not fully fit the second chance theme, it is still a warm fuzzy in a not too sweet way read.… (mere)