The Year of the Horses Book Review

Horse memoirs hold a special place in my heart. I’m a huge fan of the genre both as a reader and as a writer. Therefore, I’m delighted to bring you a new book review featuring Courtney Maum’s latest release The Year of the Horses.

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This memoir shines with transparent vignettes, beautifully worded about life with and without horses. Courtney dives deep into painful parts of her past, sharing both physical and mental health challenges making the reader feel like a longtime confidante.

The Year of the Horses isn’t a trite story of an anxious, stressed-out woman who is saved by horses. It’s a masterful pageant of loss, love, self-acceptance, joy and polo. Yes, polo. Polo ponies, polo playing and polo people.

Aside from serving as both art and entertainment, Maum’s memoir can foster much-needed discussions on the topic of mental health, a topic not typically touched upon in horse books.

Discover Crossing the Line (another polo memoir) here.

A Too-Short Synopsis of The Year of the Horses

Young Courtney seems to have an idyllic life, literally receiving a pony with a bow on its neck for Christmas at the age of six. She names her pony who is “the color of rubbed leather and fresh straw with a wild lion mane” Fantasy. How many of you, like me, dreamed of that Christmas morning and Santa never delivered the goods? I did however, get my fair share of horse books–several titles by Marguerite Henry.

Courtney’s mother taxis her back and forth to the barn for lessons, shows, and time with Fantasy. The horse girl dream is a reality until a few years later, due to a major health crisis her brother endures, Courtney’s mom tells her she needs to take a break from riding. Their barn commute is long and her brother’s care requires doctor visits and close attention. Her parents’ divorce.

Instead of riding, a now-horseless Courtney focuses on writing. She grows up, goes to university, moves to France, meets a guy named Leo (I realize I’m skimming over the storyline here–that’s because you need to read the book for yourself for the juicy details. Click here to snag a copy).

Courtney’s exit from horses was so profound, during their first visit to her hometown in the U.S., Leo, now her fiancé, is shocked by Courtney’s revelation: “I used to jump. I had a pony. I used to ride all the time.”

Horses remain in Courtney’s past in the early years of marriage and motherhood. Depression paired with sleeplessness overwhelm her. “Without sleep I have no boundaries I am not a writer mother wife, I am a blob, struggling through the hours with eyes that will not close.” She trudges on doing all the things required of her.

One day, an enchanting whiff of barn aroma during an interview with a dressage rider begins the wooing back to horses. Courtney was writing a novel and one of the characters was a dressage devotee. The trip to the horse farm was for work purposes, at least that what it seems she told herself.

A video discovered after typing keywords into Google asking for something beautiful also nudges her back to horses. The search engine served up Blue Hors Matine, a stunning gray, piaffing and passaging across a Grand Prix dressage court. She wept and watched the spectacular on repeat.

You will want to read for yourself the process by which Courtney finds a place to ride and how polo sweeps her off her feet. I rooted for her as she navigated the ups downs of finding a good barn family and riding program where she could thrive.

You might also enjoy my equestrian memoir, Horses Adored and Men Endured.

Favorite Passages from The Year of the Horses

One of the many quotes that stood out to me is this gem: “I didn’t want to rush to the next thing on my agenda, I only wanted to sit, and feel and be.” Courtney’s words resonate with me 100%! I think of time in the saddle as a trip to Narnia. My mom (who is not a rider, but loves horses and gets it) describes riding as a “mini vacation.”

Two fascinating facts Courtney shares are that a horse’s electromagnetic field is five times that of ours and can influence our own heartbeat (to slow it down), and pleasant contact between horse and human can stimulate the release of oxytocin. Oxytocin is one of the “feel good” hormones. Scientific evidence proves horses make us feel better! Amen.

Read this blog post 3 Reasons Riding Horses is Good for Your Brain.

There’s a wild chapter in which Courtney adopts a traumatized cat. The sad new family member who refuses to settle in upends her home life. I won’t give away details, but a darling twist to this cat tale made me smile.

Also, I loved the way Courtney describes learning how to play polo. The descriptions were spot on! As someone who has dabbled in polo, I could totally relate to the awkwardness. Simultaneously riding and swinging a mallet and trying to follow the ball and not die spoke to me. And trying to take in all the new polo lingo such as the line of the ball, ride-off, nearside, etc.–I felt the bewilderment and have lived it myself.

During an early game in her polo passion she felt like she was getting in people’s way and wondering if they resented her as much as she resented herself. “The play was too fast, the angles too confusing.”

A wakeup call by an adolescent team member rang out, “Get your head back in the game.” The same young player followed up with, “What are you doing? GO!”

When Courtney admitted, “I don’t know what I’m doing,” the sage response from the young girl struck me: “You just need to play.”

As a gal who too often overthinks things (yes, I have a socks that say “Shhhh, I’m overthinking,”) that admonition is really an encouragement for life.

Closing Thoughts

The Year of the Horses is not just one woman’s journey, I’m sure you’ll see pieces of yourself in Courtney’s narrative. Also, I have to add, the cover is excellent! How do I get those vintage breeches and waves in my hair?

I asked Courtney about her appealing cover and this is what she shared:

“What we all loved about this cover, of course, is that the woman is clearly a woman from many decades earlier, somewhere in the 1940s-1950s when womens’ rights were different. But the sense of freedom and independence that horses gave women were the same then as they are now, which I think we feel in the rider’s joyful expression and the horse’s relaxed face. On a personal note, I loved that the horse’s docked mane, bridle and the rider’s jodhpurs suggest that the rider might be preparing to play polo, which made this image such a perfect fit for my story.”

Agreed. The cover is a perfect fit.

In conclusion, hardcore equestrians will know this horse memoir was created by someone equally equine-passionate, yet The Year of the Horses is written in a way to be accessible and enjoyable for someone not yet horse-obsessed. I urge you to pick up a copy for yourself and one for a friend.

Thank you for reading and tally ho!

Your Turn: What’s your favorite memoir, equestrian or otherwise? Are you a big fan of horse and rider books?

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