The Eighty-Dollar Champion by Elizabeth Letts

c.2011, Ballantine Books

$26/$30 Canada

333 pages, includes notes

They said you were worthless. You’d never amount to anything; no good. Not worth the time.

And just like that, you were written off, completely and irrevocably dismissed.

Discouraging? Yes, but scenes like this tend to fan the spark of defiance inside each of us, compelling us to boldly prove the naysayers wrong, thus ultimately creating fist-shakingly strong human beings.

As you’ll see in the new book The Eighty-Dollar Champion by Elizabeth Letts, such discouraging words also work for horses, too.

By the time he left Holland, bound for America, Harry de Leyer had seen plenty. As the eldest of his parents’ dozen children, he’d braved the Nazis and risked his life for family and neighbors. He’d met hardship. So when he emigrated to America with his wife, a trunkful of possessions and $160, he was eager for opportunity.

He found it: By the mid-1950s, the de Leyers had succeeded enough to buy a small farm on Long Island. A horseman at birth, Harry was the riding instructor at a posh girls’ school near his home when, in early 1956 and late to a horse sale, he spotted a ragged gray gelding on its way to slaughter.

He was always looking for gentle steeds for his students. Something in the animal’s demeanor made Harry pull out his bankroll.

Cleaned up, the horse was rather pretty; “fleabitten,” as horsemen would say. He’d seen the harness of a plow, but he was friendly, easygoing and steady, a willing pupil. Snowman, as Harry’s children named him, would be perfect for Harry’s students. The animal’s $80 cost was money well spent.

At the end of the school year, with no room at his own stable, Harry sold Snowman to a nearby doctor, but Snowman had other ideas. Like a faithful mutt, the horse kept returning to Harry’s barn, leaping several fences to get there.

Then one day, in Harry’s mind, everything clicked: This horse was a jumper! With a little work, he might be able to win a few competitions. With training, Snowman might, in some small way, fulfill one of Harry’s dreams.

Author Elizabeth Letts says that in the late 1950s, when Snowman rocked the horse world and word spread like wildfire, people needed a hero. Even now, we love an underdog story. But The Eighty Dollar Champion jumps well over that.

It’s difficult, if not impossible, to avoid wanting to cheer while reading this book. Though we can surmise by its cover what happens, Letts lends a definite edge-of-your-seat feeling to the story of Harry de Leyer and his unlikely dream-maker. She does it by pulling readers back to mid-last century: the times, the newsmakers, fashions and myriad reasons why the nation held its breath as an aging gray plow horse flew over nearly-inconceivably high barriers.

I don’t think you have to be a horse lover to enjoy this heartwarming true story about a couple of survivors, and love. No, for most readers, I think The Eighty-Dollar Champion is a worthy horse of a different color.

Terri Schlichenmeyer has been reading since she was three years old and never goes anywhere without a book. She lives on a hill in Wisconsin with two dogs and 11,000 books. Readers with questions or comments may write to Terri in care of this publication.